The Battle For Humanity
by bobbert
Summary: This is the fourth story in my Hidden Hero's Series. Follow Buffy and the gang to their ultimate battle
1. Almost Paradise

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Joss does, though I think he could be doing a better job with it all.

AN: This is the next Chapter in my Hidden Hero's Series. They need to be read in order to understand some of the references in this one. The order of the stories are Vampire Slayer Meet the Charmed Ones, Tales of The White Knight, and then The Secret Warren. Read those before you read The Battle For Humanity.

AN: this story will take place one year from The Secret Warren, Remember to read and review, like responsible readers

Almost Paradise 

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Somewhere in the realm of the Omega, three women watch the history of the world and the personal history of those in it unfold on their loam. They are the three sisters of fate, each strikingly beautiful. The youngest sister has long shimmering gold hair, that falls past her feet, and big silver eyes. Her gown is the color of the moon when it is full and at its brightest. The middle sister is as dark as the youngest is light, she has black hair that falls to her mid back, and shockingly blue eyes. Her gown is the color of fall, reds and greens and yellows explode all over it. The eldest sister is a mix of the younger two, her hair which on the top is shimmering gold and goes black as it pools at her feet and beyond, her eyes one silver and one blue are large and ancient. Her gown is the color of scarlet. The younger two come from her and she was here before time existed as time was one of her children. These are the weavers of fate and destiny. 

The youngest slides her needle into the loam, then turns her silver eyes to her sisters. "A champion is born."

The oldest takes over. "One that will lead them,"

The middle sister continues. "in a battle that will end all battles." 

They turn their eyes to the only person standing with them and speak as one. "You shall protect her, it has been written."

Tara turns from them as she speaks. "I know who you talk of, the Chosen Ones daughter. but she has so many that will protect her, what can I do?"

The youngest smiles, for she is far more compassionate then that of her sisters. "You will do what you must, we saw you give your blessing to the champion that bears your name, we heard your words. You hope her fate is kinder than yours. You now know that fate is neither kind or cruel it is what it is. Just as we are what we are, you will protect her."

The middle sister remained quiet, she didn't believe in telling to much of fate, the eldest however held sway and would reveal more

"The others shall need your help also, A prophecy has been born that effects them all."

"What prophecy?" Tara said as she faced the sisters again.

"That of the Chosen One and her Knight, will wage great battle on evil itself. The balancer will have the mark of the scales on her upper thigh and she will be charged with the balance of good and evil. That which does come from the Warrior chosen and that which does come from the Chosen Ones will merge and from them shall spring forth the unifiers."

Tara shook her head. "That which comes from the chosen one and her Knight, that is Tara Rose, you are saying she will lead a battle against evil," the sisters remained silent as they continued to sew, "The last part is about Dawn, but who is the warrior chosen? You can't send me to these people without answers."

The middle sister final spoke. "They must find the answer for themselves, it has also been written that the Key shall receive the powers of the Warren Witch, and she will become the most powerful Witch in the world. As it is written so shall it be done.

****

Summers House(Middle of night)

Dawn is sleeping peacefully in her bed unaware of the twist that fate had decided to take. Dawn slowly climbs out of her bed and down the stairs, she heads for the basement. Once down there she moves to the box of things Willow had asked them to store. Unseeing she removes the top of the box and removes a heavy book, on its cover is four interlocking circles with a pentacle at its center, The Warren Witches Book Of Shadows, the pages look worn.Dawn opens the book and then snapped awake. She looks around and then down at the book.

"How did I get down here? Oh this is Tara's book."

She gently touches the page as tears come to her eyes, she still missed Tara very much even a year later. She sits cross legged on the floor and turns to the first page in the book and reads aloud.

"The oldest of gods are invoked her, the great works of magick sought. Give me the power, give me the power, I want the power."

A fierce wind picked up and started blowing, Dawn backed away from the book just as a silver light exploded around her, she felt dizzy for a second then it was all gone. She shook her head, closed the book and took it back to her room, where she fell into a deep sleep. A faint silver light could be seen as Tara appeared in the room, she glided to Dawn and ran a hand over her hair and bent to whisper to her. "You have been given what was mine, treasure it always. Use it to protect the innocent, not to punish the guilty. Use it well sister." Then she was gone.

****

Hypeiron Hotel, LA- same night

Angel was sitting at his desk smiling at something Conner had said, when a flash of light caught his attention. He jumped to his feet and fell into attack mode, and launched himself at the Blond woman standing before him. She raised her hand and flung him back into his seat.

"Stop Warrior, I am here for a Purpose."

Angel shook his head. "Who are you?"

"We have met once before, I am not surprised you don't remember me, you were to lost in your grief to have noticed me. In my life I was called Tara."

Angels eyes widened. "Willow's girlfriend, but aren't you dead, we attended your memorial service."

"Gather your family, I only have time to say this once."

Angel followed Tara into the main lobby of the hotel, where the others were now gathered, she looked at them each in turn until her eyes fell on Conner, she sensed heart and courage coming from him, he would do.

"Yes, Angel to answer your question I am dead, I have been sent by the Fates to fulfill a prophecy."

Wesley looked at Tara. "What prophecy?"

She didn't seem to hear him, she was looking intensely at Connor, so Cordy stepped forward. "Hey dead lady, we asked you a question."

Tara turned to take them all in. "That which comes from the Warrior Chosen and that which does come from the Chosen Ones Shall Merge and from that shall spring forth the Unifiers." 

Angel shook his head. "What does that mean?"

Tara looked kindly on him. "I can only tell you so much, the rest Connor must learn for himself."

"Me?" Conner said looking surprised

"I am about to tell you more than the fates would want me to, Conner you that which comes from the Warrior Chosen."

Angel looked upset. "So who comes from the Chosen Ones."

Cordy rolled her eyes and sighed. "Duh, Angel. It's Dawn She comes from Buffy."

Tara smiled. "Yes Dawn was made from Buffy, but she was also made from Faith. You the child of two vampires and the child of two slayers, will join and from your union twins will be born."  
Now Wesley looked intrigued. "And from that shall spring forth the Unifiers."

"Yes, the twins shall be girls, one shall be a slayer, the other shall be the next in line to the Warren legacy. I have no more time here, you must send Conner to Sunnydale alone, this is important none must accompany him."

Angel shook his head but Cordy interceded. "All right Tara, but if one hair on his head is hurt, I will resurrect your ass and kick it."

Tara Faded from sight with a smile on her face, as Conner went upstairs to pack and Angel went to call Buffy and Xander and tell them when to expect him.

****

Sunnydale Cemetery

Dawn is patrolling with Xander and Buffy, and jabbering about Conner's visit. "Is he cute, do you know if he is cute?"

Buffy laughed, while Xander scowled. "Dawnie, I have never met Conner so I don't know if he is of the hot variety or not."

Xander mumbled. "The son of two vampires, what kind of person will he be."

"Xander," Dawn said with hurt in her voice, "I was made from two slayers, and Tara Rose is the daughter of a Slayer and the White Knight. We are good people."

At the mention of Buffy's six month old daughter, a Demon appeared and started attacking screaming to know where the baby is. He attacks with punches and fire balls. While he manages to knock Xander out, Buffy is also having a hard time dealing with it. He picks her up and throws her into a Tree, then turns to Dawn. Dawn lets out a yelp and throws her hands up waiting for the blow, when nothing happens she looks up to see the Demon frozen in place. Buffy limps over to her, and looks at her. "What did you do now."

T.B.C.

AN: Let me know if I should continue with the story, and if you would like to see Conner and Dawn sleep together and her get pregnant. In the next chapter Conner and Tara will be entering the picture, as Tara Explains about Dawns Power and gives them the prophecy, look for Leo to make a few Guest appearances. 

By the way, I have mentioned a few times that Dawn came from both Buffy and Faith. Just take a leap of faith and believe that's the way it's been since Dawn was discovered as the Key. 


	2. Questions and Answers

The gang assembled at the Magick Box, Joyce had been pulled away from a meeting at the Art Gallery. Everyone was looking at Dawn waiting for an explanation, Giles was busy wiping his glasses. "Could it possibly be that she is experiencing powers from the part of her that is the key."

Buffy shook her head, as she cradled the baby in her arms. "No Giles the oracles removed the Key from her remember."

"Well yes," Giles continued cleaning his glasses, "the key was removed, but perhaps, oh bloody hell I don't have an answer."

Joyce took them all in. "Dawn honey, do you have any answers."

Dawn looked nervous as she fiddled with the ring she was wearing. It was very intricate a last gift from Tara, it had the twelve symbols of the Zodiac on the outside edge in the center was the Warren Witch symbol. "Um, well the other night I guess I might have been sleep walking cause I ended up in the basement in front of a box of Tara's things, in it was this book, it looked old and it had the same symbol that is on my ring. It was a book of spells, I kind of read a spell in the book."

Willow's eye's narrowed. "That was the Warren Book Of Shadow's, but I didn't put it in with the things I asked you guys to store, and besides those spells only work for the Warren Witch." She turned to look at Dawn. "Did anything happen after you said the spell?"

Dawn nodded. "A silver light appeared and wind started blowing, then it just stopped."

Willow looked shocked, completely shocked. "I only saw that happen once before and that was when Tara's cousins book recognized her as a sister witch."

Xander looked very confused. "Well what does this mean, if the book recognized Dawn."

Willow shook her head. "But that's why I didn't pack the book, I couldn't only Tara or one of her descendants could take the book out of the house. It protects itself with magick. And as far as I know Tara didn't have any children."

Jenny who had been quiet till this point stood up. "We need answers and need them fast."

"Well," Willow said glancing at Dawn. "I remember a spell Tara used to summon someone to ask for help, and if Dawnie can really use the spells in that book, she should be able to do this one."

The others agreed, so Willow and Dawn slipped into the back room to sit up what would be needed for the spell, once it was done, the others came in to watch. Dawn stood before a circle of candles looking extremely nervous. "Well here goes nothing. 

__

Course unseen across the skies,

Come to us who call you near

Come to us and settle here

Hear these words,

Hear my cry,

Spirit from the other side

Come to me, I summon thee,

Cross now the great divide."

A cold wind started blowing and in the center of the candles a form was taking shape, it was a beautiful blond woman, wearing sixteenth centaury clothing, she opened her eyes and looked at Dawn. "Blessed be my daughter."

Everyone was to shocked to say anything finally Dawn cleared her throat. "Daughter?"  
"I know you have questions and I shall provide the answers, in my life I was known as Charlotte Warren."

Faith looked at the woman. "And what is that suppose to mean to us?"

Charlotte spared only a glance in Faith direction. "To you slayer it shall mean nothing," She turned to Dawn and Willow who had moved to stand next to her, "To you child it shall mean so much more. My daughter in her life was also known as Melinda Warren."

Willow's eyes widened and she waved Buffy's question away. "Melinda Warren was the reason Tara had her powers, she was like a lot of great grandmothers to Tara."

Charlotte smiled. "My daughter was the cause of good magick flourish in the new world, she herself had two daughters, Prudence from whom the Charmed Ones are descended and Christina from whom the Warren Witch is descended."

Joyce stepped next to Dawn and looked at this woman. "But what does this have to do with MY daughter?"  
"Tara's book recognized Dawn as a sister witch, kin to the Charmed Ones and the Warren Witch."

Buffy rocked her daughter who was fussing and looked thoughtful at the woman. "Dawn wasn't related to Tara or the Charmed Ones."

"When I said sister witch," Charlotte said stepping out of the circle of candles and becoming solid, "I didn't mean as in an actual sister. The world needed the Warren Witch, the Fates knew this. So they gave the world a new champion, they did not choose wrong, they sensed heart and courage from Dawn, this has always been part of her destiny, just as it was Tara's to sacrifice her life for the world." She turned to Dawn and smiled. "Your destiny is not yet complete, you have so much more to do."

Dawn who had been very silent till now freaked out. "I don't want this what ever this is take it back!"

Charlotte didn't look surprised. "I shall speak to Dawn alone."

Strange enough the others left the room all but Joyce who refused to leave. Dawn was pacing back and forth. "I didn't ask for this did I? No I didn't so take it back cause I don't want it."

Charlotte smiled. "When Tara summoned me to ask the same question, why her, she was just as upset as you and I am going to tell you what I told her." Charlotte sat down on the couch. "I understand, when I found out I was to have a magickal baby and that she would be the cause of good magick flourishing in the new world, I balked and screamed at fate. I had wanted a normal daughter, one who would marry, have children, then die a mortal. But my dear you can not fight destiny she will always win in the end. You are destined for greatness. Your powers are a gift."

Dawn sat down on the couch and dropped her head into her hands. "You said I was destined for greatness, and that my destiny is not yet complete. How am I destined for greatness and why isn't my destiny complete."

Charlotte looked to the ceiling and back at Dawn and Joyce who had sat down next to Dawn. "It is forbidden to give you to much information about your fate, but as with Tara I feel you must know. You shall not only be the Warren Witch but also you shall become an oracle to the Omega, certain events shall take place that will lead you to that moment, but that is not for a long time."

Dawn looked at Charlotte then at her mother. "Why does this have to be my destiny, aren't I screwed up enough, I was created from sister and another slayer, my blood opened portals to other dimensions, I am basically only three years old."

Charlotte stood up and looked at Dawn. "Child, you can have regrets, we all do. You can hate your destiny, all of us have at some point, but it is hopeless to fight it, you will lose What you need to do is learn how to control your powers so you will be ready," Charlotte opened her arms and Dawn went into them without hesitation, Charlotte held her close then put her at arms length. "Dawn I know this is hard for you, and that perhaps you didn't want this, but always remember with these powers you are a Warren capable of calling on the full line of Warren Witches that have gone before you, so you shall never be alone. I must go now, blessed be daughter. Your destiny awaits."

In a floury of lights Charlotte disappeared and Joyce stood and cradled Dawn in her arms, wondering who in the world she was going to protect her, while knowing that in the end she wouldn't be able to. Joyce was just about to speak when silver lights started coming form the center of the circle of candles, Dawn and Joyce watched as Tara stepped from the candles in a beautiful white gown, that fell all the way to her feet. Dawn opened her mouth to yell for the others when Willow walked through the door. "Dawnie, Conner is here" She trailed off as she saw Tara standing there. "Tara baby is that you?"

T.B.C.

AN: Sorry for the cliff hanger I decided I wanted a Warren to explain about Dawns powers and the fact that she is destined to become the oracle for the Omega. In the next chapter Tara will explain what her purpose is along with telling them about the prophecy and what Willow's job will be. Conner and Dawn will start to get to know each other

. 


	3. The BIg Moments

AN: Well on to the third chapter, I want to make one thing clear right from the beginning there will be no resurrection for Tara, she will remain dead, since it was her time to go. 

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There's moments in your life that make you, that set the course of who you're gonna be. Sometimes they're little, subtle moments. Sometimes...they're not. I'll show you what I mean. "Becoming Part One"

****************************

In a floury of lights Charlotte disappeared and Joyce stood and cradled Dawn in her arms, wondering how in the world she was going to protect her, while knowing that in the end she wouldn't be able to. Joyce was just about to speak when silver lights started coming form the center of the circle of candles, Dawn and Joyce watched as Tara stepped from the candles in a beautiful white gown, that fell all the way to her feet. Dawn opened her mouth to yell for the others when Willow walked through the door. "Dawnie, Conner is here" She trailed off as she saw Tara standing there. "Tara baby is that you?"

Tara spun in a graceful circle and looked at Willow, Willow's eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped to the ground. Joyce rushed over to her, and knelt down, Dawn shouted for Buffy as she moved closer to Tara. "Is it really you Tara?"

Tara smiled gently. and looked up over Dawns shoulder, they were all here. "I am here because a new champion has been born."

Buffy glanced at Xander who was holding their sleeping daughter, a moan from the floor made Buffy kneel down and help Willow to her feet. Willow never took her eyes off Tara, Tara smiled gently knowing that all she could give Willow was a smile. She took the group in, all were accounted for. She stepped out of the ring of candles but remained in spirit form. "A champion and a prophecy have been born. All play a part in it. _That of the Chosen One and her Knight shall wage great battle on evil itself, The balancer shall have the mark of the scales on her upper thigh and will be charged with keeping the balance between good and evil, That which does come from the Warrior chosen and that which does come from the Chosen Ones shall merge and from them shall spring forth the unifiers."_

Spike glared at the blond woman he had considered a friend. "What the bleedin bloody hell are you jabbering about. What does all that mean?"

Xander had just got the baby to sleep, and glared at Spike. "SHHHHH Deadboy Jr." 

"Spike," Faith said, "Most of it is self explanatory. That of the Chosen One and her Knight, that part is talking about Tara Rose."

Jenny stepped into the circle and smiled. "The last part, that which does come from the Warrior chosen and that which does come from the Chosen Ones. Well that last part is talking about Dawn. But who is the Warrior chosen?"  
They all turned to Tara, who shook her head. "This I can't help you with, the Fates have decreed that you find the answers for yourself."

Conner until this time remained quiet, thinking Tara didn't want him to speak of the things she had told his family but they need to know. "I am that which comes from the Warrior chosen." Everyone looked at him, he had to resist the urge to scuff his shoe and duck his head. "Tara told me and my father, that the child of two vampires and the child of two slayers would join and from our union twins would be born, the unifiers."

Tara could sense and see the questions in everyone's faces. "The fates are not saying that Dawn and Conner must have them now. Just that this is to happen that this is their destiny." She turned to look at the two slayers. "The twins shall be girls, One will be a slayer, the other the next in line to the Warren legacy."

Buffy shook her head and looked at Faith, she didn't think she could take much more revelations, looked at Tara. "And what are you to be doing during all this?"

"As it was written I shall become the new champions protector, until the time that she is able to protect herself." 

Dawn spoke up then. "Will you be showing me how to handle these new powers?"  
"No I am afraid that I can not. It is for Willow to teach you."

Willow looked shocked. "Me? But I'm not a Warren, how am I suppose to teach her to use powers I don't even know how to use."

Tara's answer was simple. "You will find a way."

Giles looked up from his legal pad. "We still have no idea who the Balancer is or even where to start looking for her."

Dawn looked like she was freaking out. "Excuse me, Excuse me. I have a problem here, Okay I get it I am okay with the whole Witch thing. But I sure as hell am not gonna sleep with some guy I don't even know and get pregnant to fulfill some prophecy that says I give birth to the Unifiers."

She looked around the room and stormed out, Faith sighed. "Alright Conner, your staying with me and Spike so lets get your things." She turned to the others. "We'll continue this tomorrow."

Faith, Spike and Conner left the room, Giles rubbed his eyes as Xander rocked Tara Rose. "Tara I don't like it, the fact that my daughter is gonna be the target of ever demonic hit man out there."

Buffy interceded. "Xander, it's not Tara's fought, it's nobodies really. This is just the way it is, so now we have to prepare our daughter for her destiny." She turned to Tara. "Where will you be?"

Tara smiled. "I will be around, and I will be able to sense when or if Tara Rose is in trouble." 

Buffy and Xander said good night to Giles and Jenny and followed the others out. Giles turned to Tara. "Do you have any idea where I can begin looking for the balancer?"

"In the book of souls." She said as she faded from sight.

Jenny put her hand on his shoulder. "Rupert don't take this all on yourself, we are all a family and will work this together."

"I just hope they can handle this. I so wanted a normal life for Buffy's daughter."

Jenny laughed. "Why should Rose have a normal life, her mother is a slayer, her father was the white knight, her Aunt is the Warren witch and was a key. And she will have an assortment of humans, demons and vampires to watch over and protect her. Not to mention a ghost. Rupert normal is highly over rated."

"Yes you are quite right, still I worry about Dawn, will she be able to handle this."

Jenny took Giles hand and led him to the door of the shop. "Dawn is a strong young woman she will be just fine. She has heart and courage, and a support system like no other person in the world, she will be fine."

****

The realm of the Omega

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The elder sister fate, stood from the loam of fate, something she hadn't done in many, many millennium lost in her own thought. She turned back to her sisters. "Jezebel will make herself known."

The youngest looked unconcerned. "They will face there destiny as they are meant to."

The oldest resumed her needle work on the loom. "Jezebel is stronger than anything they have ever faced, this we know."

The youngest still looking unconcerned took her eyes from the loom. "Is there anything we can do."

The middle sister raising her golden needle, looked at her sister. "Since the beginning of time we have not interfered and we can not do so now."

The oldest held dominance over the other two nodded her head. "For now we shall not take matters into our own hands, but sisters remember, this new champion and the unifiers are needed in the coming days."

The other two had nothing to say as they continued weaving fate.

****

Faith and Spikes home- Same night

Conner was putting his things away in the guest room, when Spike came to the door to watch him, he had the dark good looks of his father, but the gracefulness of his Mother, Spike had watched him while they had been up at the shop and he had also seen some of Cordy in him. The boy would do. 

"How you fairing in here."

Conner looked up at this man who had spent so many years with his dad. "Alright, I guess."

"You worried about something?"

Conner nodded. "Dawn, she didn't seem to happy."

Spike laughed. "Nibblet is more like big sis than she care to admit and she would stake me if she heard me say this. Dawn will balk at this prophecy but in the end just like Buffy she will meet it but on her terms. What do you think of this?"

"I'm not thrilled but then again I was a prophecy child."

Faith walked in and saw them sitting there and smiled. "Hey fangs," she bent to kiss Spike and sit in the chair. "I was just thinking of something, Now if Angel is Drucilla's sire, that makes him her father. Now she sired you, so that makes you her son. So doesn't that make Angel your grandfather?"

Spike narrowed his eyes. "Yeah so Peaches is My grandsire."

Faith smiled again. "Well Conner is his son, so wouldn't that make him your uncle."

Spike's smirk disappeared. "Bloody hell, you're right." He turned to Conner. "But don't think I will be calling you Uncle."

Conner snickered. "What was it that what's his name called you. Deadboy Jr. Can I call you that."

"Not bloody likely." Then he turned at the chuckle coming from Faith. "Let's go slayer it's been a long day, and I could use a snuggle and some sleep."

They said good night to Conner, and went to their room. As Conner wonder through the living room he found a photo album. He flipped through it and found pictures of the whole gang together and separate shots of Dawn, as he turned the page he found a whole section labeled "Our Vegas Wedding." It had shots of Spike and Faith, in front of a Chapel with a very bad impression of Elvis. Spike was in his habitual black duster, and Faith was in biker pants and a black halter top, they were holding a marriage certificate. Conner shook his head and laughed, he put the book back and went to his room.

****

Harris Apartment- Same day

Buffy stared down at her daughter in the bassinet, that was by the bed, and just watched her sleep, thought she was so beautiful. She turned to Xander who was gazing out the window. 

"Xan is everything alright?" 

He turned from the window, made his way back to the bed. "Buffy how many more times are we gonna let fate tell us how to live our lives. How to raise our daughter."

Buffy sighed. "Xander it is useless to fight it, how many times have I tried to fight my duty, only to surrender to it in the end. All we can do Xander is raise her to be the best woman she can. Teach her to face her destiny head on, then meet it with her terms."

Xander smiled and kissed Buffy as they laid down holding each other, each thinking about the future.

****

Somewhere not in Sunnydale 

Across the country in a small town in Maine, a beautiful woman stirs in bed as nightmares plague her. This one different from the last, this one showed the Champion at the lead of a great Army, her being victorious. The woman jerks awake and sits up in bed. She has raven black hair spilling down to her waist, and blue eyes that on first glance seem perfectly normal but they hide the many centuries she's been on this earth. She was present at the crucifixion of Christ, had helped start the mob that wanted him gone, she had helped Hitler try to destroy the Jewish people. Had help start the L.A. Race riots. She had been at every single bad or evil moment in the past 3000 years. Before that, well she didn't think before that, she would get even with them also. She stepped from bed, her lover having been stirred awake sits up and complains, she throws a hand over her shoulder and he erupts in flames. She rings for her maid, and sits down at the vanity table.

The maid knocks and meekly opens the door, the woman barely gives a glances.

"Mary start preparing my bags for an indefinite period of time."

The maid bobs her head. "Yes Mistress Jezebel."

The woman smiled and thought soon very soon, the omens pointed her to California, and to Boca Del Inferno, she chuckled, the new Champion had been born on the Mouth Of Hell.

T.B.C. 

AN: These past three chapters seem to ramble but I had to put a lot groundwork for the story in these chapters. I will start more with the action in the next chapter, thanks for reading


	4. A Realities Death

AN: In this chapter we see that reality isn't always what it seems, as everything Buffy and the gang thought was real is torn apart by a revelation. 

In a cave on the outskirts of Sunnydale, two women one younger than the other are having an argument. The younger of the two throws up her hands. "Mother how am I suppose to tell them."

"You must," the older woman said, "they need to know. I never hid who I was from you, or the fact that you would have to take my place someday as you have done."

"I hid this from them so they could have a normal life, or as normal as it can be when you are what they are."

The older woman smiled sadly. "What is normal, daughter. In two thousand years I have seen supposedly normal people do some horrible things. What have you seen in the thousand years you have been in this world. You have seen death, destruction, war."

This time it was the younger woman who smiled sadly. "I never could make you see mother, that those things you speak of death, destruction and war are sometimes necessary to keep the balance."

The old woman nodded her head, her lips thin. "You think I don't know this, I know this and can still despise the necessity of it. Since the dawn of time the women of our family have held the Balance between good and evil in them. You are the balance Daughter, but your time will grow short and you will have to pass the balance on." The old woman looked at her daughter, they have always been at odds with each other, neither thinking the other understood, but the old woman understood more than her daughter knew. She had listened to her daughters anguished sobs when her daughter's daughters destiny was revealed to her but could show no comfort, fate was what it was. She had only known her granddaughters and now her great granddaughter from a distance. "Daughter I have not interfered with your daughters because you didn't want them to know me, it pained me but I didn't make myself known to them, but if you do not tell them I will."

The young woman glared at her mother. "Fine mother it is time for them to know where they come from. You will get your wish, you will know your granddaughters, I will tell them the truth, god help us all." She turned from her Mother and moved to the mouth of the cave. "Goodbye Mother, I will be in touch."

The woman watched her daughter leave. "Goodbye Joyce, I love you."

****

Sunnydale cemetery

The gang had decided to separate for patrol, Buffy and Xander taking the parks, Dawn and Conner, Faith and Spike taking a cemetery. Willow, Anya, and Xander had taken the campus. Dawn was moving through the headstones at a fast clip, Conner rushed to keep up with her. "Dawn have you been able to use any more of your powers?"

Dawn sighed, she so didn't want to talk about this, all they have talked about for two weeks was her powers, her and Roses destiny. "No, though I know the triggers for them I can't seem to get them." Willow had called the Charmed Ones to find out what to do and it was decided that Leo would be her White lighter and due to the circumstances she wouldn't travel to San Francisco to train. "The only power I don't seem to have a problem using is the Freezing powers. I can't even make things blow up."

Any more talk was cut off when six vampires attacked them, Conner dived in while Dawn looked over her shoulder for Spike and Faith but they were no where in sight. The bigger of the Vampires stalked Dawn. "Give us the Baby!"

Dawn felt a burning anger deep in her chest. "You want her, you have to go through me."

The Vamp charged, Dawn spun away from the charge, her anger growing as the undead man attacked again, this time knocking the stack from her hands. Dawn spared a glance over her shoulder and saw that Faith and Spike had arrived and were helping Conner. She looked back at the big Vamp and he was sizing her up. "You know little girl when I get through draining you dry, I am gonna take that baby and drain her too, there is nothing more filling than a newborn."

Dawn screamed with rage and threw her hand out and without touching the vamp sent him flying into a tree, he stood up and growled as charged her, she felt the burning anger and concentrated to bring it to her hands so that when she threw them up instead of freezing the vamp exploded into just. Dawn looked at the ashes blowing away. "I guess I ain't such a little girl."

Across the cemetery, behind a statue, Jezebel watched the battle, and wondered if that pixie was the champions protector. The others were of little importance, the power raiding off the pixie was enormous. She stepped from behind the statue to make her presence known to the small group.

Dawn was the first to see the Dark haired woman moving gracefully through the headstones. Dawn fell wearily into a defensive stance, as the others flanked her. The woman's sapphire blue eyes laughed at them. "I have no wish to fight you yet."

Dawn relaxed a small degree, so the woman could read her more easily, her eyes widened she was a descendant of the balancer, this information could be used. "I am Jezebel Redfern and you have correctly guessed that I am not an ally in your battle, I too want the child. Will I have go through you pixie to get to her."

Before Dawn could say anything the woman vanished before there eyes. They couldn't explain and after the night they just had they didn't want to. Faith, Spike and Conner walked Dawn home. Dawn unlocked the door and found her Mother in the kitchen. "Mom I'm home."

Joyce turned and smiled. "Home safely."

Dawn smiled. "Is Rose upstairs?" Joyce nodded, Dawn headed up the stairs and into what had been Buffy's room, found the baby awake and fussing, Dawn lifted her into her arms. "Come now Rose don't fuss, Do you want Aunt Dawn to sing you a song." Dawn used her free hand to flip on the small radio as the music filled the room, Dawn started singing.   
_"All the colors of the Rainbow_

All the colors of the wind

Every dream that reaches out

That reaches out to find were love begins

Every word of every story

Every star in every sky

Every corner of creation lives to testify 

For as long as I shall live

I will testify to love

I'll be a witness in the silences 

when words are not enough

With every breath I take

I will give thanks to Goddess above

For as long as I shall live

I will testify to love

From the mountains to the valley

from the rivers to the streams

every hand that reaches out

every hand that reaches out to offer peace

Every simple act of mercy

Every step to kingdom come

All the hope in every heart will speak 

what love has done

For as long as I shall live

I will testify to love

I'll be a witness to the silences

when words are not enough

With every breath I take

I will give thanks to Goddess above

For as long as I shall live 

I will testify to Love." 

As the music ended Dawn laid a now sleeping Rose back into the crib and stood there watching her, she turned to leave and found her mother, Buffy and Xander standing in the door smiling. Dawn blushed and closed the door. "How long have you guys been standing there?"

Buffy smiled and put her arm around Dawn. "Long enough to know that you have a wonderful singing voice. How did patrol go?"

They moved into the living room and sat. "We were attacked by six vamps wanting Rose, my telekinesis became active so I was able to defend myself, But the vamp knocked the stake out of my hand, so I blew him up." Joyce was looking through the mail, and found an envelope addressed to Dawn, she sat it aside and picked up Dawns conversation. "Then this dark haired woman came waking out from the headstones, she said she wanted Rose too and that her name was Jezebel Redfern."

Joyce sighed she was gonna have to tell them and she would after Dawn read this letter from San Francisco. "Dawn you got a letter here."

"Oh, Guys it's from the Charmed Ones listen.

__

Dear Dawnie,

I hope you don't mind me starting the letter that way Tara always called you Dawnie, So I feel as if I know you. We, Phoebe, Paige and I wanted to let you know that even though you are not a blood sister to us, you are a sister witch. That makes you family. So call on us whenever you are in need. Or even if you're not in need, we would like to get to know you. 

Blessed Be,

Piper.

Dawn smiled and looked at the paper, then back to her family, Joyce sighed. "Darlings I have something I need to tell you and I don't want any interruptions while I tell this story. I know you don't know much about your grandmother."

Buffy nodded. "No all you would say was that she died right after you married Dad."

"That was just one of the lies I told you and justified by believing it was keeping you safe. My mother isn't dead, she is very much alive and healthy. Buffy, Dawn the women of our family since the dawning of time were the balancers."

Dawn eyes widened, Buffy looked shocked. "Mom are you saying your the Balancer the prophecy spoke about?"

Joyce lifted her skirt enough for them to see the mark of the scales on her leg. "I hid this from you two to keep you as safe as possible considering what you are. But no I can't be the one mentioned in the prophecy, you see we keep the balance between good and evil with in us and it can only be held for a thousand years."  
Dawn sputtered. "Mom are you a thousand years old?"  
"Yes Dawn I am, My mother passed the balance on to me when it was time but because of the complications she wasn't able to pass it all to me until about two years ago, so your grandmother is two thousand years old."

Buffy sighed. "Mom so which one of us will you pass it on to, I mean don't we have enough destinies."

"Well neither one of you can take the balance. The other part that I wanted to tell you girls about is, Buffy you have a twin sister."

T.B.C.

AN' hehehe, a cliff hanger, I know who Buffy's twin sister is already but who do you think it is. In the next story Jezebel makes her first move against Rose and we see what kind of power Joyce as the balancer actually possess. Stay tuned

**__**


	5. The Ties That Bind

AN: Well this is the fifth chapter of the final story in my Hidden Hero's Series. I would like to thank one reviewer who has given great feedback and excellent encouragement. Evil Penguin this chapter is dedicated to you.

__

Your not ready for the world outside, you keep pretending but you just can't hide. I know i said I'd be standing by your side but I.... Your paths unbeaten and it's all uphill and you can meet it but you never will and I'm the reason you're standing still. I wish I could say the right words to lead you through this land, wish I could play the father and take you by the hand. "Giles, Once More With Feeling"

Buffy sighed. "Mom so which one of us will you pass it on to, I mean don't we have enough destinies."

"Well neither one of you can take the balance. The other part that I wanted to tell you girls about is, Buffy you have a twin sister."

Buffy's eye's widened, her mouth dropped open. Dawn just sat there her shock plain on her face. Xander too was shocked. "Joyce what are you saying."

"Buffy, when your father and I started out we didn't have much and then before we knew it I was pregnant with you, we thought one baby how wonderful, until we found out I was to have twins. We talked about it and we discussed it and we came to a decision that was the hardest thing I would have to do in my life. We would have to give one of the baby's up." Joyce's voice clogged with tears as she remembered that day. "I was in labor with the two of you for seventy-two hours but the pain was only a memory when they laid you in my arms, then I was doubly blessed when they laid your sister in my arms but the time had come one of you was to go to another family. I looked at you both, but what I saw on your sister made my decision for me. I saw the mark of the scales, at that moment I decided that your sister would be the one to go to the other family and I would take this legacy to the grave with me."

Buffy could see her mother laying in that hospital bed and deciding which of her daughters she would have to give away. Buffy thought of her own daughter and wondered if she could have been as strong as her mother was. "Who is she, where is she?"

Joyce shook her head. "In the beginning we got progress reports, cause that's what we wanted. We knew the family we gave her to lived in Boston, but the reports stopped."

Dawn too had tears in her eyes. "Do you know her name?"

Joyce sighed, this was a moment she had dreaded all her life and even more so now because of what and who this other daughter is. "Yes I know her name, and thanks to a private investigator I know where she is."

Buffy sighed she didn't know how much more she could take. "Who is it?"

"Well, Buffy she recently got married, the reason the reports stopped was because her father was killed in the line of duty, he was a cop. Her mother turned to alcohol and died around when she was sixteen. She has been on her own since then."

"Mom," Buffy said her mind reeling with all this information, "who is it?"

Joyce took a deep breath. "Her married name is Faith Gordon."

****

Sunnydale hotel- same night

Jezebel sat and stared out at the night sky, her mind wasn't on her plan to get the champion, she was thinking of the past and her sisters. There were times she missed them even if they didn't show many emotions, then there were times she hated them for what they were and it was those times that surfaced more. Jezebel turned from the window in disgust and walked to her desk. The champion would be protected her sister would have seen to that, but they had also protected Christ, and the innocents in Salem Town, they to had been protected but she had gotten around them and she would do so again. This first attack couldn't be made by her. She wanted to gauge the powers of those that protected the champion. She would summon a Demon, she didn't kid herself she knew it wouldn't be easy, there was a reason these people were chosen to protect the champion. They were most likely the strongest and best at what they did. And at least one was a descendant of the Balancer. She would get even with Victoria and that meddling daughter of hers also, they had almost destroyed her the last time they met. Her eyes narrowed she would get even with them all.

****

The Magick Box- Later that same night

Faith sat at that table completely unaware of the fact that her whole life was about to change, she was holding a deep conversation with Conner on how to get Dawn to notice him. "Well Con did you try just out right telling her?"

Conner's eyes widened in fear. "I don't know how, Faith most of my life was spent in a demon world just surviving. My dad and I were just catching up on all we missed when Tara appeared."

Faith sighed. "My parents died early in my life, I was always on my own. I will tell you something Conner, that not many people know, I was adopted and I always fantasized about the kind of Mother-Daughter talks I would have with my birth-mother. I didn't get many of those talks cause my mother died when I need them the most."

Conner felt pity and sympathy for the little girl Faith had been. "So how did you get Spike?"

Faith laughed. "It was right after we had battled the First, Spike was now human and him and I were patrolling. I threw him to the ground and staked a vamp, then kissed him."

There was laughter coming from the table that had Spike looking over from where he was standing talking to Giles. He shook his head and smiled, Giles was watching Faith with an interesting look. "She is quite good with him isn't she?"

"Yeah Watcher, I think it was as much a surprise to her as it is to the rest of us."

"What do you know of her past Spike?

Spike sat down wearily. "Not to bloody much, she doesn't talk about it. Just that her Dad died when she was five and that her mother died when she was barely sixteen. I did get out of her that she was adopted and that she has been searching for her birth-parents since her mother died."

"Faith is my sister, you mean the same Faith who switched bodies with me, the same Faith that tried to kill us, The same Faith that Xander slept with!" Buffy was hyperventilating, with all this news.

Joyce nodded worriedly "Yes Faith is your sister, your twin sister."

Dawn was chuckling, Buffy turned furious eyes on her. "And this is funny why?"

"Buffy there's nothing that can be done about it, Faith is our sister, plus she is a different person now, back on her path. Besides how do you think I feel, I just found out I was created from my Older twin sisters."

Xander was trying to keep a level head in this. "Joyce what do we do now, I mean do we tell her."

Joyce nodded. "We have no choice in the matter, added to that," she turned to take in her daughters, "your grandmother wants to meet you."

Before to much could be said a demon burst through the front door taking Buffy by surprise, in that moment of hesitation the demon sent Buffy flying into the dinning room table, and turned on the others. "Give me the champion!"

Joyce's hands started crackling silver and purple energy. "Demon be gone." She sent the energy swirling towards him that blasted him through the front window, Dawn ran to the window and threw her hands out and blew the demon to smithereens, than ran to check on Rose, she found Tara floating by the crib and nodded before running back downstairs to check on her sister. Buffy was getting to her feet and shaking her head at something Xander had said. "No Xander that Demon is the least of our problems at the moment. Our biggest problem is how to tell Faith that the Summers women are her birth family."

Dawn smiled "Yeah Xander it's not like you can go up to her and say Oh Faith by the way, Buffy is your twin sister, I am your little sister and Mom is really your birth mother,"

"It might be easier than you think." Said a voice that had everyone turning around to see Faith, Spike, and Conner standing in what had been the door."

T.B.C.

AN' lol well how did you like the chapter, a little more action in this one, I am sorry for the lack of Action but please stick with me, it is coming there is just a lot of information to get out of the way first


	6. Family Ties

AN: It's time for some twists in this chapter as we see what Jezebel can really do with her powers

"It might be easier than you think." Said a voice from the splintered doorway. Buffy turned to see Faith, Spike, and Conner standing there.

Joyce took a step forward. "Faith I know you have questions you want answered why don't we move into the living room." 

Once they had all sat down, Faith didn't waist anytime, "Why did you give me away?"

Joyce sighed. "I gave you away to save you from the destiny that was mine when you and Buffy were born. You see the woman of our family carry the balance between good and evil inside of them, it has been that way since the dawn of time. I am the current Balancer and you Faith are the next in line."

"I always felt a connection to you guys, even when I tried to kill you I felt a connection, now I know why." Faith turned to Buffy, "well hey B it looks like we're twins."

Dawn was smiling until she noticed the older woman standing in the doorway. Joyce noticed Dawn's look and turned to see the older woman and smiled softly. "It's alright mother, come on in." Victoria stepped into the room and smiled, Joyce stood up. "Girls I would like you to meet your Grandmother. Mom, this is Buffy, Faith and Dawn."

The three women remained still until Buffy broke ranks and walked over to hug her, Victoria smiled softly when Dawn joined the hug, Faith had stood still and watched her sisters hug their grandmother. 

"I always wanted sisters and now I have them. I always wanted to a mother I could have mother daughter talks with, now I can have them too. In all my fantasies about finding my birth-family I never thought about grandparents." Victoria's eyes clouded over, and Faith smiled, "but I got to tell you this is better." She threw herself into the hug and Joyce joined them. 

Victoria smiled through her tears. "At last six generations of Borden women under one roof  . . ."

There was a laugh from the door that had them all spinning around; Dawn blanched when she saw Jezebel. Jezebel walked through the door smiling. "And it will make it so much easier to kill all six generations." Joyce's hands started glowing purple, Jezebel spun and unleashed an energy ball that struck Joyce, Victoria, and Faith throwing them into the living room with the men, she waved her hand and an energy field wove around the door. "I'll deal with you later." She turned just as Dawn threw out her hand to send her flying and muttered a word, nothing happened. Dawn looked at her hand horrified, Jezebel smiled and sent her flying down the hall way and landing against a wall. She turned to Buffy. "It looks like it's just you and me Slayer."

Buffy fell into a fighting stance. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Jezebel smiled a cruel smile that froze Buffy in place. "When I finish with you, nothing stands between me and the champion."

Just then a silver light shown from the ceiling, and Tara appeared next to Buffy. "I stand between you and Rose."

Jezebel threw her head back and laughed. "You are nothing but a spook and easily dealt with." She waved her hand, just as Tara opened her mouth to say something and she disappeared. "Well now that we won't have anymore interference." 

Buffy didn't wait and launched herself at Jezebel they traded blows looking as if Buffy had the upper hand. Then things changed as Jezebel struck her leg out and caught Buffy in the stomach, then she back handed her through a wall. The china cabinet collapsed on top of her. Jezebel smiled in victory and started towards the stairs just as Willow and Giles rushed into the house. Jezebel turned and sighed. "You can't hope to defeat me, I am a fate." With that she disappeared 

The energy field faded and the others came pouring out of the living room, Joyce and Conner rushed to Dawn, as the others rushed to move the cabinet off Buffy. Willow gasped when they finally got to Buffy she was all broken and bloody. Xander and Spike moved her to Dawn's room. Joyce and Victoria cleaned her up then left her rest and joined the others downstairs. Giles was pacing, Xander looked at her mother and her grandmother. "How is she?"

Victoria sighed. "Besides the obvious, I suspect internal bleeding, and a few cracked ribs. If she wasn't the slayer she'd be dead."

Faith looked to Giles. "What do we do?"

"I haven't a clue, this Jezebel is like nothing we have ever faced before."

Dawn was close to freaking. "I'll say, she has to be powerful if she was able to bind my powers and we can't remove the binding, Willow and I have tried."

Xander looked at Joyce and Victoria. "What I don't understand is why she would choose to attack just the six of you and leave the rest of us alone."

Victoria sighed. "Jezebel wasn't kidding when she said she was a fate. A very long time ago she tried to over-through her fellow sisters and take the loom of fate for herself. That would have upset the balance so my great-great-grandmother went against her and won, but couldn't defeat her permanently. I don't know of any way to do that."

Willow looked shaken. "So what can we do. We are so not ready to go against her, beyond the fact that she binded Dawn's powers with just a word. She seems to have been able to stop Tara from coming into this realm."

"You're right Will." Buffy said from the doorway.

Giles stood up. "Buffy I know you're tired."

She looked at him and her voice quavered. "I am beyond tired, I am beyond scared. I am standing on the mouth of hell and it's going to swallow me whole," the steel came back in her voice, "and it'll choke on me. We're not ready, she's not ready. She thinks we're just gonna sit and wait for the end to come like we always do, I'm sick of waiting. She wants an apocalypse; oh we'll give her one!" She took in the whole room. "If anyone wants to run, they do it now because as of this moment we have become an army and we are gonna wage war. We won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out one by one and cut out their hearts until Jezebel shows herself for what she really is then I will kill her myself. The only thing in this world more powerful than evil is us. She can not have Rose. Any questions?"

T.B.C.

AN: Sorry it took so long to get this next chapter out and it is a short one, but in-between work and classes and the computer crashing well you get the jest of it. I decided to use Buffy's speech because I felt it worked in this chapter. Nothing is as it seems, This is the last segment of this arch. All manners of things are gonna change


	7. Dreams and Balances

Monday, June 8, 2:30 a.m. 

  _Dear Diary,_

_  I don't seem to be sleeping very well tonight, so I might as well write you. All day today I've been waiting for something to happen. And it did, Jezebel nearly killed Buffy and gave me bruises galore. I don't know what to do with out my powers and nothing seems to bring them back, and now __Tara__ can't get to this realm anymore. And every time I close my eyes I see Jezebel start up the steps to Rose's room. We sent her to the Charmed Ones, hoping they can keep her safe and away from Jezebel should we fail._

_ Maybe I'll try to sleep again. Maybe if I lie down with my headphones on, I won't see Jezebel._

_****_

Dawn put the diary back in her nightstand drawer and took out her walkman. She flipped through the channels as she stared at the ceiling with heavy eyes. Through the crackly and sputter of static a D.J.'s voice sounded in her ear.

 "And here's a golden oldie for all you fabulous fifties fans. 'Goodnight Sweetheart' on the Vee Jay label by the spaniels . . ."

  Dawn drifted away on the music.

  The ice cream soda was strawberry, Dawn's favorite. The jukebox was playing 'Goodnight Sweetheart' and the counter was squeaky clean. But Tara, Dawn decided would never really wear a poodle skirt.

 "No poodles," she said gesturing at it. Tara looked up from her hot fudge sundae. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. "Who thinks of these things anyway?" Dawn asked.

 "You do silly. I'm only visiting."

 "Oh." Dawn took a pull at the soda. Dreams. There was a reason to be afraid of dreams, but she couldn't think of it just now.

 "I can't stay long," Tara said. "I think she already knows I'm here. I just came to tell you . . ." She frowned.

 "Dawn looked at her sympathetically. "Can't you remember either?" She drank more soda. It tasted odd.

  "I died too young, Dawn. There was so much I was supposed to do, to accomplish. And now I have to help you."

 "Thanks." Dawn said.

 "This isn't easy, you know. I don't have that much power. It's hard getting through, and it's hard keeping everything together."

 "Gotta keep it together," Dawn agreed, nodding. She was feeling strangely lightheaded. What was in this soda?

 "I don't have much control, and things turn out strange somehow. She's doing it, I guess. She's always fighting me. She watches you. And every time we try to communicate, she comes."

  "Okay." The room was floating

 "Dawn, are you listening to me? She can use your fear against you. It's the way she gets in."

 "Okay . . ."

 "But don't let her in. Tell everyone that. And tell Willow . . ." Tara stopped and put a hand to her mouth. Something fell onto the hot fudge sundae.

  It was a tooth.

 "She's here." Tara's voice was strange, indistinct. Dawn stared at the tooth in mesmerized horror. It was lying in the middle of the whipped cream, among the slivered almonds. "Dawn tell Willow . . ."

 But Dawn was stumbling back. Everything was whirling around. The soda was bubbling out of the glass, but it wasn't soda; it was blood. Bright red and frothy, like something you coughed up when you died. Dawn's stomach convulsed.

 "Tell Willow I love her! And don't trance, Dawn do you hear me Don't Trance!" It was the voice of a toothless old woman, and it ended in hysterical sobs. Dawn was glad to fall into darkness and forget everything.

  Dawn nibbled at the end of her felt pen, her eyes on the clock, her mind on the calendar. Eight and a half more days of school to survive. And it looked as if every minute was going to be misery. 

  Some guy had said it outright, backing away from her on the stairs. "No offense, but your friends keep turning up dead or bruised. Your whole family is whacked."  Dawn had gone into the bathroom and cried.

 But now all she wanted was to be out of school, away from the tragic faces and accusing eyes- or worse, the pitying eyes.

 The bell for the end of the day rang; Dawn was the first one out of the building and on to the street. It didn't take her long to walk home. When she got there she found her family sitting around the table planning, Willow and Giles, and Jenny were researching Jezebel. While Buffy, Faith, Spike, and Conner were in the basement training. Dawn sat on the steps next to Xander to watch. She turned to Xander. "Where is Mom and Grandma?"

Xander gave her a crooked smile. "They are sitting up for the ritual to pass the balance on to Faith."

Dawn turned her eyes back to the people on the floor; her eyes kept landing on Conner and the way his muscles rippled when he moved. She found herself thinking more of him every day he was around. They were growing closer, had gone on a date or two, and he had been the one to comfort her when everything they tried failed to bring back her powers. Feelings she had never felt before were churning in her, she wondered if they were love.

 The door to the basement opened and Joyce called down. "We're ready for you up her Faith."

The others joined her up in the living room, a circle had been formed, and there was smoking incense, perfuming the room. Joyce stepped into the circle followed by Faith. Joyce spoke to Buffy. "I will be very weak after the balance has been passed, I'll need to rest for a while, but it is important that nothing interrupt the ritual." 

She turned to Faith and took her hands. 

 "_Swift on the heel thou comest,_

_Thrice summoned by my spell,_

_Thrice troubled by my burning,_

_I call to the balance with-in me,_

_It is time to find your way to my_

_Successor, The one who bears my _

_mark__."_

There was a whirlwind of energy with-in the circle pouring out of Joyce and into Faith. They jerked apart Joyce collapsing, Faith falling to her knees. Buffy rushed forward to their mother, while Spike rushed to Faith. 

Faith was helped to the chair, while Joyce was helped to the couch and made comfortable. Victoria sighed. "They will both be fine. Shouldn't you all be out patrolling?"

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, but I don't want to leave you and mom here by yourselves."

Faith raised her head. "I'll stay with them; Grandma here can bring me up to speed on my powers."

Buffy nodded and broke everyone up into teams and started out. Half way down the street Xander stopped her. "Buffy, I know Faith is your sister and everything we've been through, I still don't trust her to be alone with your mother and grandmother."

"Xander, I want to trust my sister and I do. So let's not have this talk." She moved on to the cemetery, they were patrolling. 

Two hours later of nothing happening the others met back at the corner and walked to the front door of the house to find it open. Buffy rushed in to find her mother, half on the floor half on the couch, and Faith just standing there. But no Victoria.

AN: I know another cliff hanger and another short chapter, but hey the next chapter by last count is 10 pages long. Stay tuned


	8. Losing Faith

Losing Faith

AN: Not much to say right now just read and review

  "I trusted you, Faith. I trusted you!" Buffy was saying. Dawn had never seen her so angry, not even at Evil Spike. But it was more than anger.

  "And you just let it happen," Buffy went on, without glancing at Dawn and the others as they stepped forward, without giving Faith a chance to reply. "Why didn't you do _something? If you were too much of a coward to fight her, you could at least have called for me. But you just stood there!"_

  Faith's face was hard, closed. Her dark eyes glittered, and there was nothing lazy or casual about her posture now. She looked as unbending and brittle as a pane of glass. She opened her mouth, but Buffy interrupted. 

  "It's my own fault. I should have known better. I did know better. _They all knew, they warned me, but I wouldn't listen."_

  "Oh, did _they?"  Faith snapped a glance toward Dawn on the sidelines. A chill went through her._

  "Buffy, wait," Conner said. "I think-"

  "I should have listened!" Buffy was raging on. She didn't even seem to hear Conner. "I should have stayed with them myself. I promised Tara, Jezebel wouldn't get to the fates-and I lied! They are gonna die thinking I betrayed them." Dawn could see it in her face now, the guilt eating into her like acid. "If I had stayed here-"

  "You would be dead!" Faith hissed. "This isn't an ordinary baddie you're dealing with. She would have broken you like a twig again."

  "And that would have been better!" Buffy cried. Her chest was heaving. "I would have rather have died protecting grandmother then stood by and watched it! What happened, Faith?" She had gotten hold of herself now, and she was calm, too calm; her green eyes were burning feverishly in her pale face her voice vicious, poisonous, as she spoke. "Were you too busy or just too uninterested to interfere?"

"Buffy she is my grandmother too."

Buffy laughed a cold cruel laugh. Faith said nothing. She was just as pale as her sister, every muscle tense and rigid. Waves of black fury rising from her as she watched Buffy.

  "Or maybe you enjoyed," Buffy was continuing, moving another half step forward so that she was right in Faith's face. "Yes, that was probably it, being with another killer. Was it good, Faith?"

  Faith's fist jerked back and she hit Buffy.

  It happened too fast for Dawn's eye to follow. Buffy fell backward onto the soft carpet, long legs sprawling. Willow cried out something, and Conner jumped in front of Faith.

  Brave, Dawn thought dazedly, but stupid. The air was crackling with electricity. Buffy raised a hand to her mouth and found blood, black in the moonlight. Dawn lurched over to her side and grabbed Buffy's arm.

  Faith was coming after Buffy again. Conner fell back before her, but not all the way. He dropped to his knees beside Buffy, sitting on his heels, one hand upraised.

  "Enough, you guys! Enough, all right?" he shouted.

 Buffy was trying to get up. Dawn held on to her arm more firmly. "No! Buffy, don't! Don't!" She begged. Willow grabbed her other arm.

  "Faith, leave it alone! Just leave it!" Conner was saying sharply.

  We're all crazy, getting in the middle of this, Dawn thought. Trying to break up a fight between two angry Slayers. They're going to kill us just to shut us up. Faith's going to swat Conner like a fly.

  But Faith had stopped, with Conner blocking her way. For a long moment the scene remained frozen, nobody moving, everybody rigid with strain. Then, slowly, Faith's stance relaxed. 

  Her hands lowered and unclenched. She drew a slow breath. Dawn realized she'd been holding her own breath, and she let it out.

  Faith's face was cold as a statue carved in ice. "All right, have it your way," she said, and her voice was cold too. "But I'm through here. I'm leaving. And don't come after me sister, I'll kill you. Promise or no promise."

  "I won't come after you," Buffy said from where she sat. Her voice sounded as if she'd been swallowing ground glass.

   Faith hitched up her jacket, straightening it. With a glance at Dawn that scarcely seemed to see her, she turned to go. Then she turned back and spoke clearly and precisely, each word an arrow aimed at Buffy.

  "I warned you," she said. "You should have listened to me, big sister. Maybe you'll learn something from tonight."

  "I've learned what trusting you is worth," Buffy said. "Get out of here, Faith. I never want to see you again."

  Without another word, Faith turned to go and stopped by Spike, the look she gave him had him stepping back and she walked away into the darkness.

  Dawn let go of Buffy's arm and put her head in her hands.

  Buffy got up, shaking herself like a cat that had been held against its will. She walked a little distance from the others, her face averted from them. Then she simply stood there. The rage seemed to have left her as quickly as it had come.

  What do we say now? Dawn wondered, looking up. What can we say? Buffy was right about one thing: Xander had warned Buffy about Faith and she hadn't listened. She'd truly seemed to believe that her sister could be trusted. And then they'd all gotten careless, relying on Faith because it was easy and because they needed the help. No one had argued against letting Faith watch over Victoria and Joyce tonight.

  They were all to blame. But it was Buffy who would tear herself apart with guilt over this. Dawn knew that was behind her out of control fury at Faith: her own shame and remorse. She wondered if Faith knew that, or cared. And she wondered what had really happened tonight, Now that Faith had left, they would probably never know. 

  Outside noises were reasserting themselves: grasshoppers, and passing cars. Willow had one hand pressed to her forehead, her eyes shut. Dawn looked from her to Buffy, to the darkness outside. A wave of sheer exhaustion passed through her body. All the adrenaline that had been supporting her throughout this evening seemed to have drained away. She didn't even feel angry anymore at her grandmothers kidnapping; only depressed and sick and very, very tired. She wished she could crawl into her bed and pull the blankets over her head.

Buffy and Xander were helping Joyce to her room, and then they would take living room and stay there. Spike took Conner and they left to go back to his apartment. Willow was the only one left and she didn't seem to want to go. Dawn sat down at the table and looked at her. Ever since Jezebel had bound her powers she had become very physic. Jezebel could block Tara from coming to this reality but not from Dawn's dreams. She looked again at Willow. "There won't ever be anyone else, will there?"

  "No. Not for me." Willow was so tired that her control was slipping and Dawn could see behind the mask. And again she saw that pain and need, so great that she had to look away from Willow.

  A strange chill of premonition and dismay trickled through her heart. Willow, she realized, the chill deepening, was different. No matter how much time passed, no matter what she did, she would never truly heal. Without Tara she would always be half herself, only half alive.

  Dawn had to think of something, do something, to push this awful feeling of dread away. Willow needed Tara; she couldn't be whole without her. Tonight Willow started to crack up, swinging between dangerously tight control and violent rage that brought out the dark magicks. If only she could see Tara for just a minute and to her . . .

 She'd sat next to Willow, to give her a shoulder. But there was something else Willow wanted, she realized, and only she had the power to give it to her.

   Without looking at Willow, her voice husky, she said, "Would you like to see Tara?"

  Dead silence from the table. Dawn sat, watching the shadows in the room sway and flicker. At last, she chanced a look at Willow out of the corner of her eye.

  Willow was breathing hard, eyes shut, body taut as a bowstring. Trying, Dawn diagnosed, to work up the strength to resist temptation.

  And losing. Dawn saw that.

  Tara always had been too much for her.

  When Willow's eyes met Dawn's again, they were grim, and her mouth was a tight line. Her skin wasn't pale anymore but flushed with color. Her body was still trembling-taut with anticipation.

  "You might get hurt, Dawn."

  "I know."

  "You'd be opening yourself up to forces beyond your control. I can't guarantee that I can protect you from them."

  "I know, how do you want to do it?"

Fiercely, Willow took Dawn's hand. "Thank you," She whispered

"How about if I go into a trance and try to reach her, and then, once I make contact, try to find you and draw you in? Do you think that would work?"

  "It might, if I'm reaching for you too," Willow said withdrawing that intensity from her and focusing it on a candle. "I can touch your mind . . . when you're ready, I'll feel it."

  "Right." The candle was white, its wax sides smooth and shining. The flame drew itself up and then fell back. Dawn stared until she became lost in it, until the rest of the room blacked out around her. There was only the flame, herself and the flame. She was going into the flame. 

  Unbearable brightness surrounded her. Then she passed through it into the dark.

**********

  The funeral home was cold. Dawn glanced around uneasily, wondering how she had gotten here, trying to gather her thoughts. She was all alone, and for some reason that bothered her. Wasn't somebody else supposed to be here too! She was looking for someone.

   There was light in the next room. Dawn moved toward it and her heart began pounding. It was a visitation room, and it was filled with tall candelabras, the white candles glimmering and quivering. In the midst of them was a white coffin with an open lid.

  Step by step, as if something were pulling her, Dawn approached the casket. She didn't want to look in. She had to. There was something in that coffin waiting for her. The whole room was suffused with the soft white light of the candles. It was like floating in an island of radiance. But she didn't want to look . . .

   Moving as if in slow motion, she reached the coffin, stared at the white satin lining inside. It was empty. 

  Dawn closed it and leaned against it, sighing.

  Then she caught motion in her peripheral vision and whirled.

  It was Tara.

  "Oh, God, you scared me," Dawn said.

  "I thought I told you not to come here," Tara answered.

  "This time Tara's hair was loose, flowing over her shoulders and down her back, the pale golden white of a flame. She was wearing a thin white dress that glowed in the candlelight. She looked like a candle herself, luminous, radiant. Her feet were bare.

  "I came here to . . ." Dawn floundered, some concept teasing around the edged of her mind. This was her dream, her trance. She had to remember. "I came here to let you see Willow," she said.

  Tara's eyes widened, her lips parting. Dawn recognized the look of yearning, of almost irresistible longing. Not fifteen minutes ago she'd seen it on Willow's face.

  "Oh," Tara whispered. She swallowed, her eyes clouding. "Oh, Dawnie . . . but I can't."

  "Why not?"

  Tears were shining in Tara's eyes now, and her lips were trembling. "What if things start to change? What if _she _comes, and . . ." She put a hand to her mouth and Dawn remembered the last dream, with teeth falling like rain. Dawn met Tara's eyes with understanding horror.

  "Don't you see? I couldn't stand it if something like that happened," Tara whispered. "If she saw me like that . . . And I can't control things here; I'm not strong enough. Dawnie, please don't let her through. Tell her how sorry I am. Tell her-" She shut her eyes, tears spilling.

  "All right." Dawn felt as if she might cry too, but Tara was right. She reached for Willow's mind to explain to her, to help her bear the disappointment. But the instant she touched it she knew she'd made a mistake.

  "Willow, no! Tara says-" It didn't matter. Willow's mind was stronger than hers, and the instant Dawn had made contact she took over. She'd sensed the gist of Dawn's conversation with Tara, but she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Helplessly, Dawn felt herself being overridden, felt Willow's mind come closer, closer to the circle of light formed by the candelabras. She felt Willow's presence there, felt it taking shape. She turned and saw her, red hair, tense face, green eyes fierce as a falcon's. And then, knowing there was nothing more she could do, she stepped back to allow them to be alone.

  Willow heard a voice whisper, soft with pain, "Oh, no." 

A voice that she'd never thought to hear again, that she would never forget. Ripples of chills poured over her skin, and she could feel a shaking start inside her. She turned toward the voice, her attention fixing instantly, her mind almost shutting down because it couldn't cope with so many sudden driving emotions at once.

  Her eyes were blurred and could only discern a wash of radiance like a thousand candles. But it didn't matter. She could feel Tara there. The same presence she sensed the very first day on campus at school, a golden white light that shone into her consciousness. Full of cool beauty and searing passion and vibrant life. Demanding That she move toward it, that she forget everything else.

  Tara. It was really Tara.

  Her presence pervaded Willow, filling her to her fingertips. All her hungry senses were fixed on that wash of luminance, searching for her. Needing her.

  Then Tara stepped out.

 She moved slowly, hesitantly. As if she could barely make herself do it. Willow was caught in the same paralysis

 Tara.

  Willow saw her every feature as if for the first time. The pale gold hair floating about her face and shoulders like a halo. The fair, flawless skin. The slender, supple body just now canted away from her, one hand raised in protest.

  "Willow," the whisper came, and it was her voice. Her voice saying her name. But there was such pain in it  that she wanted to run to Tara, hold her, promise her that everything would be all right. "Willow, please . . . I _can't_ . . ."

  Willow could see her eyes now. The dark blue of lapis lazuli, flecked in this light with gold. Wide with pain and wet with unshed tears. It shredded her guts.

  "You don't want to see me?" Her voice dry as dust.

  "I don't want you to see me. Oh, Willow, Jezebel can make anything happen. And she'll find us. She'll come here . . ."

  Relief and aching joy flooded through Willow. She could scarcely concentrate on her words, and it didn't matter. The way she said her name was enough. That "Oh, Willow" told her everything she cared about.

 Willow moved towards her quietly, her own hand coming up to reach for hers. She saw the protesting shake of her head, saw that her lips were parted with her quickening breath. Up close, her skin had an inner glow, like a flame shining through translucent candle wax. Droplets of wetness were caught on her eyelashes like diamonds.

  Although Tara kept shaking her head, kept protesting, she did not move her hand away. Not even when Willow's outspread fingers touched it, pressing against cool fingertips as if they were on opposite sides of a pane of glass.

  And at this distance her eyes could not evade hers. They were looking at each other, looking and not turning aside. Until at last she stopped whispering "Willow, no" and only whispered her name. 

  Willow couldn't think. Her heart was threatening to come through her chest. Nothing mattered except that Tara was here, that they were here together. She didn't notice the strange surroundings, didn't care who might be watching.

  Slowly, so slowly Willow closed her hand around Tara's, intertwining their fingers, the way they wee meant to be. Her other hand lifted to her face.

  Tara's eyes closed at the touch, her cheek leaning into it. Willow felt the moisture on her fingers and a laugh caught in her throat. Dream tears. But they were real, she was real. Tara.

  Sweetness pierced her. A pleasure so sharp it was a pain, just to stroke the tears away from Tara's face with her thumb.

  All the frustrated tenderness of the last year, all the emotions she'd kept locked in her heart that long, came cascading out, submerging her. Drowning both of them. It took such a little movement and then she was holding Tara.

  An angel in her arms, cool and thrilling with life and beauty. A being of flame and air. She shivered in Willow's embrace; then, eyes still shut, put up her lips.

  There was nothing cool about the kiss. It struck sparks from Willow's nerves, melting and dissolving everything around it. She felt her control unraveling, the control she'd worked so hard to preserve since she'd lost Tara. Everything inside her was being jarred loose all knots untied, all floodgates opened. She could feel her own tears as she held Tara to her, trying to fuse them into one flesh, one body. So that nothing could ever separate them again.

  They were both crying without breaking the kiss. Tara's slender arms were around her neck now, every inch of her fitting to Willow as if she had never belonged anywhere else. She could taste the salt of her tears on Willow's lips and it drenched her with sweetness.

   Willow knew, vaguely, that there was something else she should be thinking about. But the first electric touch of Tara's cool skin had driven reason from her mind. They were in the center of a whirlwind of fire; the universe could explode or crumble or burn to ashes for all she cared, as long as she could keep Tara safe.

  But Tara was trembling. 

  Not just from emotion, from the intensity that was making Willow dizzy and drunk with pleasure. From fear. Willow could feel it in Tara's mind and she wanted to protect her, to shield her and to cherish her and to kill anything that dared frighten her. With something like a snarl she raised her face to look around.

  "What is it?" she said, hearing the predator's rasp in her own voice. "Anything that tries to hurt you-"

  "Nothing can hurt me." Tara still clung to Willow, but she back to look into her face. "I'm afraid for you, Willow, for what Jezebel might do to you. And for what she might make you see . . ." Her voice quavered. "Oh, Willow, go now, before she comes. She can find you through me. Please, please go . . ."

  "Ask me anything else and I'll do it," Willow said. Jezebel would have to shred her nerve from nerve, muscle from muscle, cell from cell to make her leave Tara.

  "Willow, it's only a dream," Tara said desperately, new tears falling. "We can't really touch, we can't be together. It's not allowed."

  Willow didn't care. It didn't seem like a dream. It felt real. And even in a dream she was not going to give up Tara, not for anyone. No force in heaven or hell could make her . . .

  "Wrong, Witch. Surprise!" said a new voice, a voice Willow had only heard once. 

  Jezebel wore a red silk blouse, and a white skirt. She looked like any regular person, except for her eyes. They were so clear and penetrating. Electric blue, like razor-frosted sly. Her hair was almost ebony, falling down her back. Her wide smile made Willow feel sick.

  "Willow, I presume," she said, scraping a curtsy, "And of course the beautiful Tara. The beautiful dead Tara. Come to join her, Willow? You two were just meant to be together."

   She looked young, older than Willow, but still young. She wasn't.

   "Willow, leave now," Tara whispered. "She can't hurt me, but you're different. She can make something happen that will follow you out of the dream."

 Willow's arm stayed locked around her.

  "Bravo!" Jezebel applauded, looking around as if to encourage an invisible audience. She staggered slightly, and if she'd been human, Willow would have thought she was drunk.

  "Willow, _please,"  Tara whispered._

  "It would be rude to leave before we've even been properly introduced," Jezebel said. Hands in her skirt pockets, she strode a step or two closer. "Don't you want to know who I am?"

  Tara shook her head, not in negation but in defeat, and dropped it to Willow's shoulder. She cupped a hand around her hair, wanting to shield every part of her from this madwoman.

  "I want to know," Willow said, looking at the dark haired woman over Tara's head.

  "I don't see why you didn't ask me in the first place," the woman replied, scratching her cheek with her middle finger. "Instead of going to everybody else. I'm the only one who can tell you. I've been around along time."

  "How long?" said Willow, unimpressed.

  "A long time . . . " The dark haired woman's gaze turned dreamy, as if looking back over the years. "I was at the crucifixion of Christ. I killed with Alexander's army. I fought in the Trojan War. I'm old, Willow. I'm one of the fates."   

  "I helped bring down the Roman Empire,: the dark haired man continued dreamily. "They called us barbarians-they just didn't understand! War, Willow! There's nothing like it. Europe was exciting then. But your sweetie is just slightly beyond my reach at present. Vibrating on a higher plane, isn't that what the mystics say, Tara? Why don't you vibrate down here with the rest of us?"

  "If only I could," whispered Tara, lifting her head and looking at Jezebel with hatred.

  "Oh, well. Meanwhile I've got your friends grandmother."

  Willow lunged one step forward, but Tara caught her. "Willow, don't! This is her territory, and her mental powers are stronger than ours. She controls it."

  "Precisely. This is my territory. Unreality." Jezebel was grinned her staring psychotic grin again. "Where your wildest nightmares come true, free of charge. For instance," she said, looking at Willow, "how'd you like to see what your sweetheart really looks like right now? Without her makeup."

  Tara made a soft sound, almost a moan. Willow held her tighter.

  "It's been how long since she died? About a year? Do you know what happens to a body once it's been in the ground a year?" Jezebel licked her lips again, like a dog.

  Now Willow understood. Tara shivered, head bent, and tried to move away from her, but she locked her arms around her.

  "It's all right," Willow said to her softly. And to Jezebel; "You're forgetting yourself. I'm not a human who jumps at shadows and the sight of blood. I know about death, Jezebel. It doesn't frighten me."

  "No, but does it thrill you?" Jezebel's voice dropped, low, intoxicating. "Isn't it exciting, the stench, the rot, the fluids of decomposing flesh? Isn't it a kick?"

  "Willow, let me go Please." Tara was shaking, pushing at her with her hands, all the time keeping her head twisted away so she couldn't see her face. Her voice sounded close to tears. "Please"

  "The only Power you have here is the power of illusion," Willow said to Jezebel. She held Tara to her, cheek pressed to her hair. She could feel the changes in the body she embraced. The hair under his cheek seemed coarsen and Tara's form to shrink on itself.

  "In certain soils the skin can tan like leather," Jezebel assured her, bright eyed, grinning.

  "Willow, I don't want you to look at me-"

  Eye's on Jezebel, Willow gently pushed the coarsen white hair away and stroked the side of Tara's face, ignoring the roughness against her fingertips.

  "But of course most of the time it just decomposes. What a way to go. You lose everything, skin, flesh, muscles, internal organs, all back into the ground. . . ."

  The body in Willow's arms was dwindling. She shut her eyes and held tighter, hatred for Jezebel burning inside her. An illusion, it was all an illusion . . .

  "Willow . . ." It was a dry whisper, faint as the scratch of paper blown down a sidewalk. It hung on the air a minute and then vanished, and Willow found herself holding a pile of bones.

  "And finally it ends up like that, in over two hundred separate, easy-to-assemble pieces. Comes with its own handy-dandy carrying case. . . ." On the far side of the circle of light there was a creaking sound. The white coffin there was opening by itself, the lid lifting. "Why don't you do the honors, Willow? Go put Tara where she belongs."

Willow dropped to her knees, shaking, looking at the slender white bones in her hands. It was all an illusion, Jezebel was merely controlling Dawn's trance and showing Willow what she wanted Willow to see. Jezebel hadn't really hurt Tara, but hot, protective fury inside Willow wouldn't recognize that. Carefully, Willow laid the fragile bones on the ground and touched them once, gently. Then she looked up at Jezebel, lips curled with contempt.

  "That is not Tara," she said.

  "Of course it is. I'd recognize her anywhere." Jezebel spread her hands and declaimed, "I knew a woman, lovely in her bones . . ."

 "No." Sweat was beading on Willow's forehead. She shut out Jezebel's voice and concentrated, fists clenched, muscles cracking with effort. It was like pushing a boulder uphill, fighting Jezebel's influence. But where they lay, the delicate bones began trembling, and a faint golden light shone around them.

 "A rag and a bone and a hank of hair . . . the fool he called them his lady fair . . ."

 "The light was shimmering, dancing, linking the bones together. Warm and golden it folded about them, clothing them as they rose in the air. What stood there now was a featureless form of soft radiance. Sweat ran into Willow's eyes and she felt as if her lungs would burst.

 "Clay lies still, but blood's a rover . . ."

 Tara's hair, long and silky gold, arranged itself over glowing shoulders. Tara's features, blurred at first and then clearly focused, formed on the face. Lovingly, Willow reconstructed every detail. Thick lashes, small nose, parted lips like rose petals. White light swirled around the figure, creating a thin gown.

 "And the crack in the teacup opens a lane to the land of the dead . . ."

 "No." Dizziness swept over Willow as She felt the surge of Power sigh out of her. A breath lifted the figure's breast, and eyes blue as lapis lazuli opened.

  Tara smiled, and Willow felt the blaze of her love arc to meet her. "Willow." Tara said, her head was high, proud as any queen's.

 Willow turned to Jezebel, who had stopped speaking and was glaring mutely.

 "This," Willow said distinctly, "is Tara. Not whatever empty shell she's left behind in the ground. This is Tara, and nothing you do can ever touch her."

  She held out her hand, and Tara took it and stepped to Willow. When the touched, Willow felt a jolt, and then felt Tara's Powers flowing into her, sustaining her. They stood together, side by side, facing the dark haired woman. Willow had never felt as fiercely victorious in her life, or as strong.

  Jezebel stared at them for perhaps twenty seconds and then went berserk.

  Her face twisted in loathing. Willow could feel waves of malignant Power battering against her and Tara, and she used all her strength to resist it. The maelstrom of dark fury was trying to tear them apart, howling through the room, destroying everything in its path. Candles snuffed out and flew into the air as if caught in a tornado. The dream was breaking up around them, shattering.

  Willow clung to Tara's other hand. The wind blew her hair, whipping it around her face.

 "Willow!" She was shouting, trying to make herself heard. Then Willow heard her voice in her head. "Willow, listen to me! There is one thing you can do to stop her. You need a victim of evil, Willow find a victim of evil. Only a victim-"

The noise level was unbearable, as if the very fabric of space and time was tearing. Willow felt Tara's hands ripped from hers. With a cry of desperation, she reached out for her again, but she could feel nothing. She was already drained by the effort of fighting Jezebel, and she couldn't hold on to consciousness. The darkness took her spinning down with it.

Dawn had seen everything.

 It was strange, but once she stepped aside to let Willow go to Tara, she seemed to lose physical presence in the dream. It was as if she were no longer player but the stage the action was being played upon. She could watch, but she couldn't do anything else.

  In the end, she'd been afraid. She wasn't strong enough to hold the dream together, and the whole thing finally exploded, throwing her out of the trance, back into the dinning room.

  Willow was lying on the floor and she looked dead. So white, so still. But when Dawn tugged at her, trying to get her off her face, her chest heaved and she heard her suck in a gasping breath.

 "Willow? Are you okay?"

She looked wildly around the room as if trying to find something. "Tara!" she said, and then she stopped, memory clearly returning. Her face twisted. For one dreadful instant Dawn thought she was going to cry, but she only shut her eyes and dropped her head into her hands.

 "Willow?"

 "I lost her. I couldn't hold on."

 "I know." Dawn watched Willow a moment, then, gathering her courage, knelt in front of her, touching her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

  Willow's head lifted abruptly, her green eyes dry but so dilated they looked black. Her nostrils were flared, her lips drawn back from her teeth.

  "Jezebel!" she spat the name as if it were a curse. "Did you see her?"

  "Yes," Dawn said, pulling back. She gulped, her stomach churning. "She's crazy, isn't she, Willow?"

 "Yes." Willow got up. "And she must be stopped."

 "But how?" Since seeing Jezebel, Dawn was more frightened than ever, more frightened and less confident. "What could stop her, she's a fate, Willow? I've never felt anything like that Power."

 "But didn't you-?" Willow turned to her quickly. "Dawn, didn't you hear what Tara said at the end?"

 "No. What do you mean? I couldn't hear anything; there was a slight hurricane going on at the time."

 "Dawn . . ." Willow's eyes went distant with speculation and she spoke as if to herself. "That means that Jezebel probably didn't hear it either. So she doesn't know, and she won't try and stop us."

 "From what? Willow, what are you talking about?"

 "From finding a victim of evil. Listen, Dawn, Tara told me that if we can find victims of evil, we can find a way to stop Jezebel."

 "That shouldn't be a problem," Dawn said. As Buffy and Xander walked into the dinning room.

 "What shouldn't be a problem?" Buffy inquired as she sat down wearily in a chair.

 As quickly as they could they filled Buffy and Xander in on what had happened, with each word Buffy's mouth got tighter.

"Dawn, Willow. Do you know how deeply dangerous that was. You could have been killed. I barely survived the last attack Jezebel launched on us and you let her attack you in your minds." Buffy stopped speaking getting herself under control; she looked at Xander for a moment than back to Willow and Dawn. "How do we find a victim of evil, and how do we know we found the right one?"

Willow shook her head. "I don't know. The trance was broken before Tara could tell me."

"I am gonna go call San Francisco and see how Rose is doing." Buffy turned to Dawn, "I don't want you trancing again till this is over and you have your powers back!"

So said she left the room and Dawn crept up the stairs to her bedroom, Willow stretched out on the floor and slept.

T.B.C

AN: So what did you think hehehe? They found a way to stop Jezebel, but hey this is Sunnydale, there are a lot of victims of evil.


	9. Buffy Goes Around The Bend Or Does She

June 14, 1:30am 

_Dear Diary,_

_Oh, God, what are we gonna do?_

_ This has been the longest week of my life. Today was the last day of school and we still aren't any closer to finding the right victim of evil. When you live on a Hell Mouth you have lots of victims. I hate Jezebel. From what I saw she's as crazy as the first Vampire was and even crueler. What she did to Buffy, and taking Grandma- but I can't talk abut that or I'll start crying again. She was just playing with us at the cemetery that time. _

_ I need to sleep or I will never be ready for tomorrow. Oh, I wish I could talk to __Tara_.__

She was still thinking about Tara as she turned off the light and crawled under the covers.

 She was sitting on lush, manicured grass that spread as far as she could see In all directions. The sky was a flawless blue, the air was warm and scented. Birds were singing.

 "I'm so glad you could come," Tara said

 "Oh-yes," said Dawn. "Well, naturally, so am I. Of course." She looked around again, then hastily back at Tara.

 "More tea?"

 There was a teacup in Dawn's hand, thin fragile as eggshell. "Oh-sure. Thanks."

 Tara was wearing an eighteenth-century dress of gauzy white muslin, which clung to her, showing how slender she was. She poured the tea precisely, without spilling a drop.

 "Would you like a mouse?"

 "A what?"

 "I said, would you like a sandwich with you tea?"

 "Oh. A sandwich. Yeah. Great." It was thinly sliced cucumber with mayonnaise on dainty square of white bread. Without the crust.

 The whole scene was as sparkly and beautiful as a picture by Seurar. Warm Springs, that's where we are. The old picnic place, Dawn thought. But surely we've got more important things to discuss than tea.

 "Who does your hair these days?" she asked. Tara never had been able to do it herself.

 "Do you like it?" Tara put a hand up to the silky, pale gold mass piled at the back of her neck.

 "It's perfect," said Dawn, sounding for all the world like a mother at a Daughters of the American Revolution dinner party.

 "Well, hair is important you know," Tara said. Her eyes glowed a deeper blue than the sky, lapis lazuli blue. Dawn touched her own straight hair self-consciously.

 "Dawnie listen to me, you are looking the wrong way for a victim of evil." Tara said.

 "Oh yes, of course," said Dawn, flustered She had no idea was Tara was talking about, and she felt as if she were walking on a tightrope over alligators. 

 "Another sandwich?"

 "thanks." It was cheese and tomato. Tara selected one for herself and bit into it delicately. Dawn watched her, feeling uneasiness grow by the minute inside her, and then-

 And then she saw the mud oozing out of the edges of the sandwich.

 "What-what's that?" Terror made her voice shrill. For the first time, the dream seemed like a dream, and she found that she couldn't move, could only gasp and stare. A thick glob of the brown stuff fell off Tara's sandwich onto the checkered tablecloth. IT was mud, all right. 

"Tara . . . Tara, what-"

 "Oh, we all eat this down here." Tara smiled at her with brown stained teeth. Except that the voice wasn't Tara's; it was ugly and distorted and it wasn't Tara's voice. "You will too."

 The air was no longer warm and scented; it was hot and sickly sweet with the odor of rotting garbage. There was black pits in the green grass, which wasn't manicured after all but wild and overgrown. This wasn't Warm Springs. She was In the Restfield cemetery; how could she not have realized that? Only these graves were fresh.

 "Another mouse?" Tara said, and giggled obscenely. 

 Dawn looked down at the half-eaten sandwich she was holding and screamed. Dangling from one end was a ropy brown tail. She threw it as hard as she could against a headstone, stomach heaving, scrubbing her fingers frantically against her jeans.

 "You can't leave yet. The company is just arriving." Tara's face was changing; to that of a vampires. Things were moving in the plate of sandwiches and the freshly dug pits. Dawn didn't want to see any of them; she thought she would go mad if she did.

 "You're not Tara!" she screamed and ran.

 The wind blew her hair into her eyes and she couldn't see. Her pursuer was behind her; she could feel it right behind her. Get to the bridge, she thought, and then she ran into something.

 "I've been waiting for you," said the thing in Tara's dress, the vampire face with long sharp teeth. "Listen to me, Dawn." It held her with terrible strength.

 "You're not Tara! You're not Tara!"

 "Listen to me, Dawn!"

 It was Tara's voice, Tara's real voice, not obscenely amused nor thick and ugly, but urgent. It came from somewhere behind Dawn and it swept through the dream like a fresh, cold wind.

 "Dawn, listen quickly-"

 Things were melting. The clawed hands on Dawn's arms, the crawling graveyard, the rancid hot air. For a moment Tara's voice was clear, but it was broken up like a bad long distance conversation.

 ". . .  She's twisting things, changing them. I'm not as strong as she is . . ." Dawn missed some words. ". . . but this is important. You have to find . . . right now." Her voice was fading.

 "Tara, I can't hear you! Tara!"

 ". . . No one can fight her and survive."

 "Tara!"

 Dawn was still shouting as she sat bolt upright in bed.

 The next morning they were sitting around the table listening to Dawn tell about her dream. Buffy just shook her head. "You're sure it was Tara?"

"Yes, and she was trying to tell me something at the end. About us not looking the right way for a victim. Then she said nothing can fight her and survive."

 Buffy looked down at the table and at her and Xander's joined hands. "We'll have to find out where she's hiding, herself and Grandma," Buffy said, looking around the table. "That's the first thing. If we rush this, we could warn her off."

 Dawn was close to hysterics. "Buffy are you listening nothing can face this thing and walk away from it."  The others nodded. They were all on the ragged edge, Dawn thought, as if they'd been gulping uppers all night. Their nerves were frayed so thin that anything could happen.

 She had a sense, too of impending cataclysm. As if everything were coming to a head, all the events since Tara's death gathering to a conclusion.

 Tonight, she thought. Tonight it all happens. It seemed strangely appropriate that is should be the eve of the solstice. 

 "The eve of what? Conner said

 She hadn't even realized she's spoken aloud. "The eve of the solstice," she said. "That's what today is. The day before the summer solstice."

 "Don't tell me. Druids, right?"

 "They celebrated it," Dawn confirmed. "It's a day of magic, for marking the change of the seasons. And . . ." she hesitated. "Well, it's like all other feast days, like Halloween or the winter solstice. A day when the line between the visible world and the invisible world is thin. When you can see ghosts, they used to say. When things happen."

 "Things," Buffy said, turning to address them all, "are going to happen."

 None realized how soon.

Buffy was down in the basement training with Giles, while Dawn was upstairs convincing the others what would happen if Buffy faced Jezebel. So they all trooped down the stairs, Dawn was carrying a letter that had come for Buffy today.

Buffy looked up at them all and took the letter from Dawn and opened it. It was blank paper, Buffy glanced up at them and then back down at the paper. On the blank paper, held tautly between Buffy's two hands, letters were appearing. They were black with long downstrokes, as if each were being slashed by an invisible knife while Dawn watched. As she read them, the dread inside her grew.

 _Buffy-_

_ Shall we try to solve this like ladies? I have your grandmother. Come to the old farmhouse in the woods after dark and we'll talk, just the two of us. Come alone and I'll let her go. Bring anyone else and she dies. _

  There was no signature, but at the bottom the words appeared _This is between you and me. _

 "What are we going to do?" she said softly.

 "I know what we're not going to do, and that's listen to her," Conner said. "'Try to solve it like ladies'-she's scum, not a lady. It's a trap."

"Of course it's a trap," Spike said impatiently. "She waited until we found out how to hurt her and now she's trying to separate us. But it won't work!"

Dawn had been watching Buffy's face with growing dismay. Because while Conner and Spike were indignantly talking, she had been quietly folding up the letter and putting it back in its envelope. Now she understood gazing down at it, her face still, untouched by anything that was going on around her. And the look in her green eyes scared Dawn.

 "We can make it backfire on her," Xander was saying. "Right, Buffy? Don't you think?"

 "I think," said Buffy carefully, concentrating on each word, "That I am going out to the woods after dark."

 Conner nodded, and like the champion he was, began to plan. "Okay, you go distract her, And meanwhile, the rest of us-"

'The rest of you," Buffy continued just as deliberately, looking right at him, "are not going."

 There was a pause that seemed endless to Dawn's taut nerves. The others just stared at Buffy.

 At last Willow said lightly, "Well, it's going to be hard to catch her while we're here unless she's kind enough to come visiting."

That broke the tension and Xander said, drawling a long-suffering breath, "All right, Buffy, I understand how you feel about this-" But Buffy interrupted.

 "I'm dead serious, Xander. Jezebel is right; this is between her and me. And she says to come alone or she'll hurt my grandmother. So I'm going alone. It's my decision."

 "It's your funeral," Dawn blurted out, almost hysterically, "Buffy, you're crazy. You can't."

 "Watch me."

 "We won't let you-"

 'Do you think," Buffy said, looking at her, "that you could stop me if you tried?"

 This silence was acutely uncomfortable. Staring at her, Dawn felt as if Buffy had changed somehow before her eyes. Her face seemed sharper, her posture different, as if to remind her of the lithe, hard predator's muscles under her clothes. All at once she seemed distant, alien. Frightening.

 Dawn looked away.

 "Let's be reasonable about this," Giles was saying, changing tactics. "Let's just stay calm and talk this over."

 "There's nothing to talk over. I'm going. You're not. Giles you stay here with them and my mother."

 "You owe us more than that, Buffy," Willow said, and Dawn felt grateful for her cool voice. "Okay, so you can tear us all limb from limb; fine, no argument. We get the point. But after all we've been through together, we deserve more of a thorough discussion before you go running off."

 "You said we were an Army," Spike added. "When did you decide we weren't?"

"When I found out what the killer was!" Buffy said.

 "You just want to believe that," Dawn almost yelled. "Jezebel hates all of us! Do you really think she's going to you walk out of there? Do you think She plans to leave the rest of us alone? What about Rose?"

 "No," Buffy said.

 "Oh, great, you're going of for single combat!" Xander said, furious. "Don't you see how stupid that is? You're walking right into her trap!" He advanced a step on his wife. "You may not think that we can stop you-"

 "No, Xander." Willow's low, level voice cut across the room. "It won't do any good." Buffy looked at her, the muscles around her eyes hardening, but she just looked back, her face set and calm. "So you're determined to meet Jezebel face to face, Buffy. The same way you did Angel, all by yourself and all most got us all killed. Think!"  
 "NO."

 Don't be a jerk Buffy," Conner snapped.

 "I said, no! This is my fight, just as Angel was my fight. I thought you would understand that." Buffy's look at Conner was bitter.

 "I understand that you're going to die out there!" Conner shouted.

 "He's right!" Dawn pressed her knuckles against her lips, "Don't you remember what Tara said. No one can fight her and live. And it's true. I feel it, Buffy. No one can fight her and live!"

 For a moment, just a moment, she thought Buffy might listen to her. Then her face went hard again and she spoke coldly. 

 "It isn't your problem. Let me worry about it."

 "But if there's no way to win-" Spike began

 "That isn't what Tara said!" Buffy replied tersely.

 "Yes, it is! What the hell are you talking about? Xander shouted. IT was hard to make Xander lose his temper, but once lost it wasn't easily gotten back. "Buffy, I've had enough-"

"And so have I!" Buffy shot back in a roar. In a tone Dawn had never heard her use before. "I'm sick of you all, sick of your bickering and spinelessness-and your dreams too! This is my problem."

 "I thought we were a team-" Xander cried

 "We are not a team. You are a bunch of stupid humans! Even with everything that's happened to you, deep down you just want to live your safe little lives in your safe little houses until you go to your safe little graves! I'm nothing like you and I don't want to be! I've put up with you this long because I had to, but this is the end." She looked at each of them and spoke deliberately, emphasizing each word. "I don't need any of you. I don't want you with me, and I don't want you following me. You'll only spoil my strategy. Anyone who does follow me, I'll kill."

 And with one last smoldering glance, she turned on her heel and walked out.


	10. Charge

  "She's gone around the bend," Spike said, staring at the empty doorway through which Buffy had disappeared.

  "No, she hasn't," said Willow. Her voice was rueful and quiet, but there was a kind of helpless laugh in it too. "Don't you see what she's doing, Spike?" she said when he turned to her. "Yelling at us, making us hate her to try and chase us away. Being as nasty as possible so we'll stay mad and let her do this alone." She glanced at the doorway and raised her eyebrows. " 'Anyone who does follow me, I'll kill' was going a bit overboard, though."

  Dawn giggled suddenly, wildly, in spite of herself. "I think she borrowed it from Faith. 'Get this straight, I don't need any of you!' "

" 'You bunch of stupid humans,' " Xander added.

 "But I still don't understand. You told her what Tara said, Dawn, and Buffy doesn't usually discount her. If there's no way to fight and win, what's the point on going?'

 "Tara didn't say there was no way to fight and win. She said there was no way to fight and survive. Right, Dawn?" Giles looked at her.

 The fit of giggles dissolved away. Startled herself, Dawn tried to examine the dream, but she knew no more than the words that hand sprung from Tara. _No one can fight her and live._

 "You mean Buffy thinks-" Slow, thunderous outrage was smoldering in Xander's eyes. "She thinks she's going to go and stop Jezebel even though she gets killed herself? Like some sacrificial lamb?"

 "More like Tara." Conner said soberly

 "No," Dawn said. "I think she's just keeping her promise to Tara, to stop Jezebel from getting to the fates no matter what it costs."

 "To try, at least," Spike said softly, and it sounded as if he were quoting. "Even if you know you're going to lose." He looked up at the rest of them suddenly. "I'm going after her."

 "Of course," said Willow patiently.

 Spike hesitated. "Uh-I don't suppose I could convince the rest of you stay home?"

 "After all that inspiring talk about teamwork? Not a chance." 

 "I was afraid of that. So . . ."

 "So." Said Dawn, "We're out of here."                                                 

  They gathered weapons, axes and swords. Outside, there was no sign of Buffy. The sky was pale purple, shading to apricot in the west. Twilight of the solstice eve, Dawn thought, and hairs on her arms tried to lift.

 "Jezebel said the old farmhouse in the woods- that must mean the Francher place." Xander said

 "That makes sense. No one goes there and it's isolated." Willow said

 "I know these woods pretty well, and I know the path Buffy will probably use. I think we should take a different one." Xander said.

 "So Buffy won't see us and kill us?"

 "SO Jezebel won't see us, or not all of us, so maybe we'll have a chance of getting to Victoria. Somehow or other we've got to get Victoria out of the equation; as long as Jezebel can threaten to hurt her she can make Buffy do anything she wants. And it's always best to plan ahead, to get a jump on the enemy. Jezebel said meet there after dark; well we'll be there before dark and maybe we can surprise her."

 Dawn was deeply impressed by this strategy. No wonder Buffy loved him, she was thinking. I would have just rushed in, yelling.

  Xander picked out an almost invisible path between the oak trees. The undergrowth was especially lush this time of year, with mosses, grasses, flowering plants, and ferns. Dawn had to trust Xander knew where he was going, because she certainly didn't. Above, birds were giving one last burst of song before seeking out a roost for the night.

 It got dimmer. Moths and lacewings fluttered past Dawn's face. After stumbling through a patch of toadstools covered with feeding slugs, she was intensely grateful that this time she'd worn jeans.

 At last Xander stopped them. "We're getting close," he said, his voice low. "There's a sort of bluff where we can look down and Jezebel might not see us. Be quiet and careful."

 Dawn had never taken so much trouble placing her feet before. Fortunately the leaf litter was wet and not crackly. After a few minutes Xander dropped to his stomach and gestured for the rest to follow. Dawn kept telling herself, fiercely, that she didn't mind the centipedes and earthworms her sliding fingers dug up, that she had no feelings one way or another about cobwebs in the face. This was life and death, and she was competent. No dweeb, no baby, but competent.

 "Here," Xander whispered his voice barely audible. Dawn Scooted on her stomach up to him and looked. 

 They were gazing down on the Francher homestead-or what was left of it. It had crumbled into the earth long ago, taken back by the forest. Now it was only a foundation, building stones covered with flowering weeds and prickly brambles, and one tall chimney like a lonely monument.

 "There's your grandmother," Conner breathed in Dawn's other ear.

 Victoria was a dim figure sitting against the chimney. Her pale blue dress showed up in the gathering dark, but her auburn hair looked black. Something white shone across her face, and after a moment Dawn realized it was a gag. Tape or a bandage. From her strange posture-arms behind her, legs stretched straight out in front- Dawn also guessed she was tied. 

 Poor Grandma, she thought, Dawn couldn't imagine anything worse than being abducted by a psycho fate who'd tried to kill your grandchildren, dragged out here to the woods and bound, and then left to wait, with your life depending on a Slayer.

 "Look!" said Spike. Is that her? Jezebel?"

 Dawn had seen it too, a ripple of movement on the opposite side of the chimney. As she strained her eyes Jezebel appeared, her white blouse loose to her thighs. She glanced down at Victoria and she shrank from her, trying to lean away. Jezebel's laughter sounded so clearly in the quiet air that Dawn flinched.

 "That's her," she whispered, dropping down behind the screening ferns. "But where's Buffy? It's almost dark now."

Maybe she got smart and decided not to come," said Conner

 "No such luck," said Willow. She was looking through the ferns to the south. Dawn glanced that way herself and started.

 Buffy was standing at the edge of the clearing, having materialized there as if out of thin air. Not even Jezebel had seen her coming, Dawn thought. She stood silently, making no attempt to hide herself or the sword she was carrying. There was something in her stance and the way she looked over the scene before her that made Dawn remember Buffy was from a long line of proud warrior's. She said nothing, waiting for Jezebel to notice her, refusing to be rushed.

 When Jezebel did turn south she went still, and Dawn got the feeling she was surprised Buffy had sneaked up on her. But then she laughed and spread her arms. 

 "Slayer! What a coincidence; I was just thinking of you!"

 Slowly, Buffy looked Jezebel up and down from the ends of her White blouse to the top of her windblown head. What Buffy said was:

 "You asked for me. I'm here. Let my grandmother go."

 Did I say that?" Looking genuinely surprised, Jezebel pressed two hands to her chest. Then she shook her head, chuckling. "I don't think so. Let's talk first."

 Buffy nodded, as if Jezebel had confirmed something bitter she'd been expecting. She took the sword from her shoulder and held it in front of her, handling the unwieldy piece of metal deftly, easily. "I'm listening," she said.

 "Not as dumb as she looks," Spike murmured from behind the ferns, a not of respect in his voice. "And she's not so anxious to get killed as I thought," Conner added. "She's being careful."

 Jezebel gestured toward Victoria, the tips of her fingers brushing the auburn hair. "Why don't you come here so we don't have to shout?" But she didn't threaten to hurt her prisoner, Dawn noticed.

 "I can hear you just fine," Buffy replied.

 "Good," Xander whispered. "That's it, Buffy!"

 Dawn though, was studying her grandmother. The captive woman was struggling. Tossing her head back and forth as if she were frantic or in pain. But Dawn got a strange feeling about her grandmothers movements, especially those violent jerks of the head, as if the woman was straining to reach the sky. The sky . . . Dawn's gaze lifted up to it, where full darkness had fallen and a waning moon shone over the trees. That was why she could see that Victoria's hair was auburn now: the moonlight, she thought. Then, with a shock, her eyes dropped to the tree just above Buffy, whose branches were rustling slightly in the absence of any wind. "Conner?" she whispered alarmed. 

 Buffy was focused on Jezebel, every sense, every muscle, every atom of her slayer powers honed and turned toward the banished fate before her. But in that tree directly above her . . .

 All thoughts of strategy, of asking Xander what to do, fled Dawn's mind. She bolted up from her place of concealment and shouted.

 "Buffy! Above  you! It's a trap!"

 Buffy leaped aside, neat as a cat, just as something plunged down on the exact place she'd been standing an instant before. The moon lit the scene perfectly, enough for Dawn to see the white of the werewolf's bared teeth.

 And to see the white flash of Jezebel's eyes as she whirled on her. For one stunned instant she stared at her, and then lightning crackled.

 From an empty sky. 

 It was only later that Dawn would realize the strangeness-the fearsomeness-of this. At the time she scarcely noted that the sky was clear and star swept and that the jagged blue bolt that forked down struck the palm of Jezebel's upraised hand. The next sight she saw was so terrifying as to black everything else out: Jezebel folding her hand over that lightning, gathering it somehow; and throwing it at her.

 Buffy was yelling, telling her to get away, get away! Dawn heard her while she stared, paralyzed, and then something grabbed her and wrenched her aside. The bolt snapped over her and a smell like ozone. She landed facedown in moss and rolled over to grasp Xander's hand and thank Xander for saving her, only to find that it was Conner. 

 "Stay here! Right here!" he shouted, and bounded away.

 Those dreadful words. They catapulted Dawn right up, and she was running after him before she knew what she was doing.

 And then the world turned into chaos.

 Jezebel whirled back on Buffy, who was grappling with the werewolf, beating him. The werewolf, was making terrible sounds as Buffy threw him to the ground.

 Willow was running toward Victoria, approaching from behind the chimney so Jezebel wouldn't see her. Dawn saw her reach her grandmother and saw the flash of the silver dagger as Willow cut the cords around Victoria's wrists. Then Willow was half carrying, half dragging Victoria behind the chimney to work on her feet. 

 A sound like antlers clashing made Dawn spin around. Jezebel had come at Buffy with a sword of her own-it must have been lying flat on the ground before. It looked just as sharp as Buffy's.

 Than Dawn saw something else and cried out wordlessly. Behind Buffy, the werewolf had gotten up again and was crouching; Buffy's back was to him. And Dawn couldn't warm her in time.

 But she'd forgotten about Xander. Head down, ignoring claws and fangs, he was charging at the werewolf, tackling him like a first rate linebacker before he could leap. The werewolf went flying sideways with Xander on top of him.

 Dawn was overwhelmed. So much was happening. Willow was sawing through Victoria's ankle cords; Xander was pummeling the werewolf with Spike and Conner's help. Buffy was using that sword the way she was trained to. Jezebel laughing deliriously, seeming exhilarated by the exercise, as they traded blows with deadly speed and accuracy. 

 But the boys seemed to be in trouble now. The werewolf and swiped at Spike and Conner sending them into a tress and knocking them out. But Xander the werewolf was gripping him and snarling, trying to get a hold on his throat. Wildly, Dawn looked around for a weapon, entirely forgetting the small dagger in her pocket. Her eyes fell on a dead oak branch. She picked it up and ran to where Xander and the werewolf were struggling.

 Once there, though, she faltered. She didn't dare use the stick for fear she'd hit Xander with it. He and the werewolf were rolling over and over in a blur of motion.

 Then Xander was on top of him again, holding the wolfs head down, holding himself clear. Dawn saw her chance and aimed the stick. But the wolf saw her. With a burst of supernatural strength, he gathered his legs and scent Xander soaring off him backward. Xander's head struck a tree with a sound Dawn would never forget. The dull sound of a rotten melon bursting. He slid down the front of the tree and was still.

 Dawn was gasping, stunned. She might have started toward Xander, but the wolf was there in front of her, breathing hard, bloody saliva running down his chin. As if in a dream, Dawn raised her stick, but she could feel it shaking in her hands. Xander was still-was he breathing? Dawn could hear the sob in her own breath as she faced the werewolf. This was ridiculous; how could he be keeping her away from Xander, how could he be trying to hurt them all? How could he be doing any of this?

"All alone in the woods, little girl?" he said, and his voice was a thick and guttural growl, shaped at the minute into words. In that instant she knew who she was facing. That was Willy the snitch, who owned the Alibi Room. Oh, God, he's ugly she thought. Ropes of red spit hung out of his mouth. And those yellow eyes with the slitted pupils-in them she saw cruelty of the shark, and the crocodile, and the wasp that lay it's eggs in a caterpillar's living body. All the cruelty of animal nature in those two yellow eyes. 

 "Somebody should have warned you," Willy said, dropping his jaw to laugh the way a dog does. "Because if you go out in the woods alone, you might meet the Big Bad-"

 "Snitch!" a voice finished for him, and with a feeling of gratitude that bordered on the religious, Dawn saw Willow beside her. Willow, holding her dagger, which shone liquidly in the moonlight.

 "Silver, Willy," Willow said, brandishing it. "I wonder what silver does to a werewolf's members? Want to see?" All Willow's soft shyness, her standoffishness, her cool observer's dispassion were gone. This was the essential Willow, a warrior Willow, and although she was smiling, she was mad. 

 "Yes!" shouted Dawn gleefully, feeling power rush through her. Suddenly she could move. She and Willow, together, were strong. Willow was stalking Willy from on side, Dawn held her stick ready on the other. A longing she'd never felt before shot through her, the longing to hit Willy so hard his head would come flying off. She could feel the strength to do it surging in her arm.

 And Willy, with his animal instinct, could sense it, could sense it from both of them, closing in on either side. He recoiled, caught himself, and turned to try and get away from them. They turned too. In a minute they were all three orbiting like a mini solar system: Willy turning around and around in the middle; Dawn and Willow circling him, looking for a chance to attack.

 One, two, three. Some upspoken signal flashed from Willow to Dawn. Just as Willy leaped at Willow, trying to knock the knife aside, Dawn hit. Remembering the advice of a distant boyfriend who'd tried to teach her to play baseball, she imagined not just hitting Willy's head but through his head, hitting something on the opposite side. She put the whole weight of her small body behind the blow, and the shock of the connecting nearly jarred her teeth loose. It jolted her arms agonizingly and it shattered the stick. But Willy fell like a bird shot out of the sky.

 "I did it! Yes! All right! Yes!" Dawn shouted, flinging the stick away. Triumph erupted from her in a primal shot. "We did it!" she grabbed the heave body by the back of the mane and pulled it off Willow, where it had fallen. "We . . ."

 Then she broke off, her words freezing in her throat. "Willow!" she cried.

 "It's all right," Willow gasped her voice tight with pain. And weakness, Dawn thought, chilled as if doused with ice water. Willy had clawed her leg to the bone. There were huge, gaping wounds in the thigh of Willow's jeans and in the white skin that showed clearly through the torn cloth. And to Dawn's absolute horror, she could see inside the skin too, could see flesh and muscle ripped and red blood pouring out.

 "Willow." She cried frantically. They had to get Willow to a doctor. Everyone had to stop now; everyone must understand that. They had an injury here; they need to get an ambulance, to call 911. "Willow," she gasped, almost weeping.

 "Tie it up with something." Willow's face was white. Shock. Going into shock. And so much blood; so much blood coming out. Oh, God, thought Dawn, please help me. She looked for something to tie it up with, but there was nothing.

 Something dropped on the ground beside her. A length of nylon cord. Dawn looked up.

 "Can you use that?" Victoria uncertainly, her teeth chattering.

 She was wearing the blue dress, her auburn hair straggling and stuck to her face with sweat and blood. Even as she spoke she swayed, and fell to her knees beside Willow.

 "Are you hurt?" Dawn gasped. 

Victoria shook her head, but then she bent forward, racked with nausea. But there was no time to worry about Grandma now. Willow was more important.

 Dawn tied the cord above Willow's wounds, her mind running desperately over things she'd learned from her sister. Buffy said a tourniquet couldn't be too tight or left on too long or gangrene set in. But she had to stop the gushing blood. Oh, Willow. 

  Dawn, help Buffy," Willow was gasping, her voice almost a whisper. "She's going to need it. . . ." She sagged backward, her breathing torturous, her slitted eyes looking up at the sky.

 Wet. Everything was wet. Dawn's hands, her clothes, the ground. Wet with Willow's blood. And Xander, Conner, Spike was still lying under the trees, unconscious. She couldn't leave them, especially not with Willy there. He might wake up.

 Dazed, she turned to her grandmother, who was shivering and retching, sweat beading her face. Useless, Dawn thought. But she had no other choice.

 "Grandma, listen to me," she said. She picked up the largest piece of the stick she'd used on Willy and put it into Victoria's hands. "You stay with them. Loosen that tourniquet every twenty minutes or so. And if Willy starts to wake up, if he even twitches, you hit him as hard as you can with this. Understand? Grandma." 

"But what are you going to do?"

 Dawn looked toward the clearing.

 "No, Dawn." Victoria's hand grasped her, and Dawn noted with some part of her mind the broken nails, the rope burns on the wrists. "Stay here where it's safe. Don't go to them. There's nothing you can do . . ."

Dawn shook her off and made for the clearing before she lost her resolve. In her heart, she knew her grandmother was right. There was nothing she could do. But something Xander had said before they left was ringing in her mind. To try at least. She had to try.

 Still, in those next few horrible minutes all she could do was look.

 So far, Buffy and Jezebel had been trading blows with such violence and accuracy that it had been like a beautiful, lethal dance. But it had been an equal, or almost equal match. Buffy had been holding her own.

 Now she saw Buffy bearing down with her sword, pressing Jezebel to her knees, forcing her backward, farther and farther back, like a limbo dancer seeing how low he could go. And Dawn could see Jezebel's face now, mouth slightly open, staring up at Buffy with what looking like astonishment and fear.

 Then everything changed.

 A the very bottom of her descent, when Jezebel had bent back as far as she could go, when it seemed that she must be about to collapse or break, something happened.

 Jezebel smiled.

 And then she started pushing back.

 Dawn saw Buffy's muscles knot, saw her arms go rigid, trying to resist. But Jezebel, still grinning madly, eyes wide open, just kept coming. She unfolded like some terrible jack-in-the-box only slowly. Slowly. Inexorably. Her grin getting wider until it looked as if it would split her face. Like a Cheshire cat.

 A cat, thought Dawn.

 Cat with a mouse.

 Now Buffy was the one grunting and straining, teeth clenched, trying to hold Jezebel off. But Jezebel and her sword bore down, forcing Buffy backwards, forcing her to the ground.

 Grinning all the time.

 Until Buffy was lying on her back, her own sword pressing into her throat with the weight of Jezebel's sword across it. Jezebel looked down at her and beamed. "I'm tired of playing, little girl." She said and she straightened and threw her own sword down. "Now it's dying time."

 She took Buffy sword away from her as easily as if she were taking it from a child. Picked it up with a flick of her wrist and broke it over her knee, showing how strong she was, how strong she had always been. How cruelly she had been playing with Buffy.

 One of the halves of the sword she tossed over her shoulder across the clearing. The other she jabbed at Buffy. Using not the handle, but the splintered one, broken into a dozen tine sword points. She jabbed down with a force that seemed almost casual, but Buffy screamed. She did it again and again, eliciting a scream each time. 

 Dawn cried out, soundlessly.

 She had never heard Buffy scream before. She didn't need to be told what kind of pain must have caused it. She didn't need to be told that Buffy was, if not dying now, about to die. That Jezebel, with her hand now raised, was going to finish it with one more plunging blow. Jezebel's face was tilted to the moon in a grin of obscene pleasure, showing that this was what she liked, where she got her thrills. From killing.

 And Dawn couldn't move, couldn't even cry. The world swam around her. It had all been a mistake, she wasn't competent; she was a baby after all. She didn't want to see the final thrust, but she couldn't look away. And all this couldn't be happening, but it was. It was.

 Jezebel flourished the splintered sword and with a smile of pure ecstasy started to bring it down.

 And a spear shot across the clearing and struck her in the middle of the back, landing and quivering like a giant arrow, like half a giant arrow. It made Jezebel's arms fling out, dropping the stake; it shocked the ecstatic grin right off her face. She stood, arms extended, for a second and then turned, the stick in her back wobbling slightly.

 Dawn's eyes were too dazzled by waves of gray dots to see, but she heard the voice clearly as it rang out, cold and arrogant and filled with absolute conviction. Just five words, but they changed everything.

 "Get away from my sisters."

AN: Sooooo. Tell me what you thought hehehe.


	11. The Battle Rages

Jezebel Screamed, a scream that reminded Dawn of ancient predators, of the saber-tooth cat and the bull mammoth. Blood frothed out of her mouth along with the scream, turning that beautiful face into a twisted mask of fury.

 Her hands scrabbled at her back, trying to get a grip on the stake and pull it out. But it was buried to deep. The throw had been a good one.

 "Faith." Dawn whispered.

  She was standing at the edge of the clearing, framed by oak trees. As Dawn watched, she took a step toward Jezebel, and then another; lithe stalking steps filled with deadly purpose.

 And she was angry. Dawn would have run from the look on her face if her muscles hadn't been frozen. She had never seen such menace so barely held in check.

  "Get . . . away . . . from my sisters," she said almost breathing it, with her eyes never leaving Jezebel's as she took another step.

 Jezebel screamed again, but her hands stopped their frantic scrabbling. "You idiot! We don't have to fight! I told you that at the house! We can ignore each other!"

  Faith's voice was no louder than before. "Get away from my sisters." Dawn could feel it inside her, a swell of Power like a tsunami. She continued, so softly that Dawn had to strain to hear her, "Before I tear your heart out."

 Dawn could move after all. She stepped backward.

 "I told you!" screamed Jezebel, frothing. Faith didn't acknowledge the words in any way. Her whole being seemed focused on Jezebel's throat, on her chest, on the beating heart inside that she was going to tear out.

  Jezebel picked up the unbroken sword and rushed Faith.

 In spite of all the blood, the dark haired woman seemed to have plenty of strength left. The rush was sudden, violent, and almost inescapable. Dawn saw her thrust the sword at Faith and shut her eyes involuntarily, and then opened them an instant later as she heard the flurry of wings.

 Jezebel had plunged right through the spot where Faith had been standing, and a black raven was soaring upward while a single feather floated down. As Dawn stared, Jezebel's rush took her into the darkness beyond the clearing and she disappeared.

 Dread silence fell in the wood.

 Dawn's paralysis broke slowly, and she first stepped, and then ran to where Buffy lay. Buffy didn't open her eyes at Dawn's approach; she seemed unconscious. Dawn knelt beside her. And then she felt a sort of horrible calm creep over her, like someone who has been swimming in ice water and at last feels the first undeniable signs of hypothermia. If she hadn't has so many successive shocks already, she might have fled screaming or dissolved into hysterics. But as it was, this was simply the last step, the last little slide into unreality. Into a world that couldn't be, but was.

 Because it was bad. Very bad. As bad as it could be.

  She'd never seen anybody hurt like this. Not even after the last time Jezebel had attacked Buffy. In that state of dreadful calm she looked up to see a flutter of wings blur and shimmer in the moonlight. Faith stood beside her, and she spoke collectedly and rationally.

 "Will going to a hospital help?"

 She didn't seem to hear Dawn. Her eyes were all black, all pupil. That barely leashed violence, that sense of ferocious energy held back, was gone. She knelt and touched the blond head on the ground.

 "Buffy?"

 Dawn shut her eyes.

 Faith scared, she thought. Faith's scared-Faith!- and oh, god, I don't know what to do. There's nothing to do-and it's all over and we're all lost and Faith is scared for Buffy. She isn't going to take care of things and she hasn't got a solution and somebody's got to fix this. And oh, God, please help me because I'm so frightened and Buffy's dying and Willow, Spike, Xander, and Conner are hurt and Jezebel is going to come back.

  She opened her eyes to look at Faith. She was white, her face looking terrifyingly young at that moment, with those dilated black eyes.

 "Jezebel is coming back," Dawn said quietly. She wasn't afraid of Faith anymore. They weren't a Slayer turned Balancer and a seventeen-year-old witch with out powers, sitting here at the edge of the world. They were just to sisters, Faith and Dawn who had to do the best they could.

 "I know," Faith said. She was holding Buffy's hand, looking completely unembarrassed about it, and it seemed quite logical and sensible. Dawn could feel Faith sending Power into Buffy, could also feel that it wasn't enough.

"Would a hospital help her?'

"A little maybe."

"Anything that helps at all we've got to try."

Buffy whispered. "NO."

 Dawn was surprised. She'd thought Buffy was unconscious. But her eyes were open now, open and alert and smoldering green. They were the only alive thing about her.

 "Don't be stupid," Faith said her voice hardening. She was gripping Buffy's hand until her knuckles turned white. "You're badly hurt."

 "I won't break my promise." That immovable stubbornness was in Buffy's voice, in her pale face. And Faith opened her mouth again, undoubtedly to say that Buffy would break it and like it or Faith would break her neck, Buffy added, "Especially when it won't do any good."

  There was a silence while Dawn fought with the raw truth of this. Where they were now, in this terrible place beyond all ordinary things, pretense or false reassurance seemed wrong. Only the truth would do. And Buffy was telling the truth.

 She was still looking at her sister by blood and her sister by shared destiny, who was looking back, all that fierce, furious attention focused on Buffy as it had been focused on Jezebel earlier. As if somehow that would help. 

 "I'm not badly hurt, I'm dead," Buffy said brutally, her eyes locked on Faith's. Their last and greatest struggle of wills, Dawn thought. "And you need to get Dawn and the others out of here."

"We won't leave you," Dawn intervened. That was the truth; she could say that.

"You have to!" Buffy didn't glance aside, didn't look away from Faith. "Faith, you know I'm right. Jezebel will be here any minute. Don't throw away your life. Don't throw away their lives."

 "I don't give a damn about their lives, only yours and Dawn's," Faith hissed. The truth also, Dawn thought. There were only two lives Faith cared about here, and neither were her own.

 "Yes, you do!" Buffy flared back. She was hanging on to Faith's hand with just as fierce a grip, as if this was a contest and she could force Faith to concede that way. "Tara had a last request; well, this is mine. You have Power, Faith. I want you to use it to help them."

 "Buffy . . ." Dawn whispered helplessly.

 "Promise me," Buffy said to Faith, and then a spasm of pain twisted her face.

  For uncountable seconds Faith simply looked down at Buffy. Then she said, "I promise," quick and sharp as the stroke of a dagger. She let go of Buffy's hand and stood, turning to Dawn. "Come on."

 "We can't leave her . . ."

"Yes, we can." There was nothing young about Faith's face now. Nothing vulnerable. "You and the Scooby's are leaving here permanently. I am coming back."

 Dawn shook her head. She knew, dimly, that Faith wasn't betraying Buffy that it was some case of Faith putting Buffy's ideals above Buffy's life, but it was all too abstruse and incomprehensible to Dawn. She didn't understand it and she didn't want to. All she knew was that Buffy couldn't be left lying there.

 "You're coming now Dawnie," Faith said, reaching for her, the steely ring back in her voice. Dawn prepared herself for a fight, and then something happened that made all their debating meaningless. There was a crack like a giant whip and a flash of daylight, and Dawn was blinded. When she could see through the afterimage, her eyes flew to the flames that were licking up from a newly blackened hole at the base of a tree.

 Jezebel had returned. With lightning. 

 Dawn's eye darted to her next, as the only other living thing moving in the clearing. She was waving the bloody lance she'd pulled out of her own back like a gory trophy.

 Lightning rod, thought Dawn illogically, and then there was another crash.

 It stabbed down from an empty sky, in huge blue-white forks that lit everything like the sun at noon. Dawn watched as one tree and then another was hit, each one closer than the last. Flames licked up like hungry red goblins among the leaves. 

 Two trees on either side of Dawn exploded with cracks so loud that she felt rather than heard it. A piercing pain in her eardrums. Faith shielded her eyes.

Then she shouted "Jezebel!" and sprang toward the dark haired woman. She wasn't stalking now; this was the deadly race of attack. The burst of killing speed of the hunting cat or the wolf.

 Lightning caught her in midspring.

 Dawn screamed as she saw it, jumping to her feet. There was a blue flash of superheated gases and a smell of burning, and then Faith was down, lying motionless on her face. Dawn could see tiny wisps of smoke rise from her, just as they did from the trees.

 Speechless with horror, she looked at Jezebel.

 She was swaggering through the clearing, holding he bloody stick like a golf club. She bent down over Faith as she passed, and smiled. Dawn wanted to scream again, but she didn't have the breath. There didn't seem to be any air left to breathe.

 "I'll deal with you later," Jezebel told the unconscious Faith. Then her face tipped up toward Dawn.

 "You," she said, "I'm going to deal with right now."

 It was an instant before she realized Jezebel was looking at Buffy, and not her. Those electric blue eyes were fixed on Buffy's face. They moved to Buffy's bloody middle.

 "I'm going to kill you now slayer, then find your daughter and do the same."

 Dawn was all alone. The only one left standing. And she was afraid.

 But she knew what she had to do.

 She let her knees collapse again, dropping to the ground beside Buffy.

 And this is how it ends, she thought. You kneel beside your champion and then you face the enemy.

 She looked at Jezebel and moved so that she was shielding Buffy. Jezebel seemed to notice her for the first time, and frowned as if she'd found a spider in her salad. Firelight flickered orange-red on her face. 

 "Get out of the way."

 "No."

 And this is how the ending starts. Like this, so simply, with on word, and you're going to die on a summer night. A summer night when the moon and stars are shining and bonfires burn like the flames the Druids used to summon the dead

 "Dawn, go," Buffy said painfully. "Get out while you can."

 "No." She could wait and let Buffy die this way, instead of by Jezebel's hands. It might not seem like much of a difference, but it was the most she could offer.

 "Dawn . . ." Buffy whispered.

 "Don't you know who I am, Pixie? I've walked with the devil. If you move, I'll let you die quickly."

 Dawn's voice had given out. She shook her head.

 Jezebel threw back her own head and laughed. A little more blood trickled out, too. "All right," she said. "Have it your own way. Both of you go together."

 Summer night, Dawn thought. The solstice eve. When the line between worlds is so thin.

 "Say good night, sweetheart."

 No time to trance, no time for anything. Nothing except one desperate appeal.

 "Tara!" Dawn screamed. "Tara! Tara!"

 Jezebel recoiled.

 For an instant, it seemed as if the name alone had the power to alarm her. Or as if she expected something to respond to Dawn's cry. She stood, listening.

 Dawn drew on her powers, putting everything she had into it, throwing her need and her call out into the void.

 And felt . . . nothing

 Nothing disturbed the summer night except the crackling sound of flames. Jezebel turned back to Dawn and Buffy, and grinned.

 Then Dawn saw the mist creeping along the ground.

 No-it couldn't be mist. It must be smoke from the fire. But it didn't behave like either. It was swirling, rising in the air like a tiny whirlwind or dust devil. It was gathering a shape roughly the size of a man.

 There was another one a little distance away. Then Dawn saw a third. The same thing was happening all over.

 Mist was flowing out of the ground, between the trees. Pools of it, each separate and distinct. Dawn, staring mutely, could see through each patch, could see the flames, the oak trees, the bricks of the chimney. Jezebel had stopped smiling, stopped moving, and was watching too.

 Dawn turned to Buffy, unable to even frame the question.

 "Unquiet spirits. Victims of evil," Buffy whispered huskily, her green eyes intent. "The solstice."

 And then Dawn understood.

 They were coming. From across the river, where the cemetery lay. From the woods, where countless makeshift graves had been dug. The unquiet spirits, the victims of evil. A supernatural host answering the call for help.  

 They were forming all around. There were hundreds of them.

 Dawn could actually see faces now. The misty outlines were filling in with pale hues like so many runny watercolors. She saw both men and women, even children. A man with a wound in his stomach, a woman with bite marks in her neck. A small figure, child size, with dark holes for eyes and a doll in her arms. 

 "Oh, my God," she whispered. "Oh, God." It wasn't swearing. It was something like a prayer.

 Not that she wasn't frightened of them, because she was. It was every nightmare she'd ever had about Sunnydale come true. Like her last dream about Tara, when things came crawling out of the earth; only these things weren't crawling, they were flying, skimming and floating until they swirled into human form. Everything that Dawn had ever felt about Sunnydale at night that it was alive and full of watching eyes, that there was some Power lurking behind its waiting stillness was proving true. The earth of the Hellmouth was giving up its bloody memories. The spirits of those who'd died here were walking again.

 And Dawn could feel their anger. It frightened her, but another emotion was waking up inside her, making her catch her breath and clench tighter on Buffy's hand. Because the misty army had a leader.

 One figure was floating in front of the others, closest to the place where Jezebel stood. It had no shape or definition as yet, but it glowed and scintillated with the pale golden light of a candle flame. Then, before Dawn's eyes, it seemed to take on substance from the air, shining brighter and brighter every minute with an unearthly light. It was brighter than the circle of fire. It was so bright that Jezebel leaned back from it and Dawn blinked, but when she turned at a low sound, she saw Willow staring straight into it, fearlessly, with wide-open eyes. And smiling, so faintly, as if glad to have this be the last thing she saw.

 Then Dawn was sure.

 Jezebel dropped the stake. She had turned away from Dawn and Buffy to face the being of light that hung in the clearing like an avenging angel. Golden hair streaming back in an invisible wind, Tara looked down on her.

 "She came," Dawn whispered.

 "You asked her to," Buffy murmured. Her voice trailed off into a labored breath, but she was still. Her eyes serene.

 "Stand away from them," Tara said, her voice coming simultaneously to Dawn's ears and her mind. It was like the chiming of dozens of bells, distant and close up at once. "It's over now, Jezebel."

 "But Jezebel rallied quickly. Dawn saw her shoulders swell with a breath, noticed for the first time the hole in the back of the white blouse where the stake had pierced her. It was stained dull red, and new blood was flowing now as Jezebel flung out her arms.

 "You think I'm afraid of you?" She shouted. She spun around, laughing at all the pallid forms. "You think I'm afraid of any of you? You're dead! Dust on the wind! You can't touch me!"

 "You're wrong," Tara said in her wind-chime voice.

 "I'm one of the fates! A Fate! Do you know what that means?" Jezebel turned again, addressing all of them, her unnaturally blue eyes seeming to catch some of the red glow of the fire. "I've never died. Every one of you has died, you gallery of spooks! But not me. Death can't touch me. I am invincible!"

 The last word came in a shout so loud it echoed among the trees. Invincible . . . invincible . . . invincible. Dawn heard it fading into the hungry sound of the fire.  

 Tara waited until the last echo had died. Then she said, very simply, "Not quite." She turned to look at the misty shapes around her. "She wants to spill more blood here, create more evil."

 A new voice spoke up, a hollow voice that ran like a trickle of cold water down Dawn's spine. "There's been enough killing, I say." It was an old man with a wound in his chest.

 "More than enough," said another voice, like the boom of a faraway drum. A woman with bite marks in her neck.

 "It's time somebody stopped it"-an old woman in rags.

 "We can't let it go on"-the little girl with the black holes for eyes.

 "No more blood spilled!" several voices took it up at once. "No more killing!" The cry passed from one to another, until the swell of sound was louder than the roar of fire. "No more blood!"

"You can't touch me! You can't kill me!"

"Let's take 'er."

Dawn never knew who gave that last command. But it was obeyed by all, man, woman, child alike. They were rising, flowing, dissolving into mist again, a dark mist with a hundred hands. It bore down on Jezebel like an ocean wave, dashing itself on her and engulfing her. Each hand took hold, and although Jezebel was fighting and thrashing with arms and legs, they were too many for her. In seconds she was obscured by them, surrounded, swallowed by the dark mist. It rose, whirling like a tornado from which screams could be heard only faintly.

 "You can't kill me! I'm immortal!"

 The tornado swept away into darkness beyond Dawn's sight. Following it was a trail of ghosts like a comet's tail, shooting off into the night sky.

 "Where are they taking her?" Dawn didn't mean to say it aloud; she just blurted it out before she thought. But Tara heard.

 "Where he won't do any harm," She said, and the look on her face stopped Dawn from asking any other questions.

 There was a squealing, bleating sound from the other side of the clearing. Dawn turned and saw Willie, in his terrible part human, part animal shape, on his feet. There was no need for Xander's club. He was staring straight at Tara and the few remaining ghostly figures and gibbering.

 "Don't let them take me! Don't let them take me too!"

 Before Tara could speak, he had spun around. He regarded the fire, which was higher than his own head, for an instant, then plunged right through it, crashing into the forest beyond. Through a parting of the flames, Dawn saw him drop to the ground, beating out flames on himself, then rise and run again. Then the fire flared up and she couldn't see anything more. 

 But she'd remembered something: Willow, Conner, Spike and Xander. Willow was lying propped up, her head in Victoria's lap, watching. Conner was still on his back. Hurt, but not so badly hurt as Buffy. Xander and Spike were lying near each other.

 "Tara," Dawn said, catching the bright figure's attention, and then she simply looked at Buffy.

 The brightness came closer. Buffy didn't blink. She looked into the heart of the light and smiled. "She's been stopped now. Thanks to you."

 "It was Dawn who called us. And she couldn't have done it at the right place and the right time with out you and the others."

 "I tried to keep my promise."

 "I know, Buffy."

 Dawn didn't like the sound of this at all. It sounded too much like a farewell-a permanent one. 

 "Tara," she said, "can't you-do something? Can't you help her?" Dawn's voice was shaking.

 And Tara's expression as she turned to look at Dawn, gentle but so sad, was even more distressing. It reminded her of someone, and then she remembered. The first Slayer. The First Slayers eyes had looked like that, as if she were looking at all the inescapable wrongs in the world. All the unfairness, all the things that shouldn't have been, but were."      

 "I can do something," she said. "But I don't know if it's the kind of help she wants." She turned back to Buffy. "Buffy, I can cure what Jezebel did. Tonight I have that much Power. But I can't take the slayer spirit from you."

Dawn's numbed brain struggled with this for a while. The slayer spirit. Then she understood. 

 "It's been too long," Buffy was saying to Tara. "If you did remove it, I wouldn't know what to do."

"Yes." Tara didn't smile, just went on looking at Buffy steadily. "Do you want my help, Buffy?"

 "To go on living in this world in the shadows . . ." Buffy's voice was a whisper now, her green eyes distant. Dawn wanted to shake her. Live, she thought to her, but she didn't dare say it for fear she'd make her decide just the opposite. Then she thought of something else.

 "To go on trying," she said, and both of them looked at her. She looked back, chin thrust out, and saw the beginning of a smile on Tara's bright lips. Tara turned to Buffy, and that tiny hint of a smile passed to her.

 "Yes," she said quietly, and then, to Tara, "I want you help."

 She bent and kissed Buffy.

 Dawn saw the brightness flow from her to Buffy, like a river of sparkling light engulfing her. It flooded over her the way the dark mist had surrounded Jezebel, like a cascade of diamonds, until her entire body glowed like Tara's.

 For an instant Dawn imagined she could see the blood inside Buffy turned molten, flowing out to each vein, each capillary, healing everything it touched. Then the glow faded to a golden aura, soaking back into Buffy's skin. Her shirt was still demolished, but underneath the flesh was smooth and firm. Dawn, feeling her own eyes wide with wonder, couldn't help reaching out to touch.

 It felt just like any skin. The horrible wounds were gone.

 She laughed aloud with sheer excitement, and then looked up, sobering. "Tara-there's Willow, too-"

 The bright being that was Tara was already moving across the clearing. Willow looked up at her from Victoria's lap.

 "Hello, Love," She said normally, except that her voice was so weak.

 Tara bent and kissed her. The brightness flowed again, encompassing Willow. And when it faded, Willow stood up on her own two feet.

 Then Tara did the same thing with Conner, who woke up, looking confused but alert. She kissed Xander and Spike. She kissed Victoria too, and Victoria stopped shaking and straightened.

 Then she went to Faith.

 She was still lying where she had falling. The ghosts had passed over her, taking no notice of her. Tara's brightness hovered over her, one shining hand reaching to touch her hair. Then she bent and kissed the dark head on the ground. 

 As the sparkling light faded, Faith sat up and shook her head. She saw Tara and went still, then, every movement careful and self-contained stood up. She didn't say anything, only looked as Tara turned back to Willow. 

 Willow was silhouetted against the fire. Dawn had scarcely noticed how the red glow had grown so that it almost eclipsed Tara's gold. But now she saw it and felt a thrill of alarm.

 "My last gift to you," Tara said, and it began to rain.

 Not a thunder and lightning storm, but a thorough pattering rain that soaked everything-Dawn included-and doused the fire. It was fresh and cool, and it seemed to wash all the horror of the last few hours away, cleansing the glade of everything that had happened there. Dawn tilted her face up to it, shutting her eyes, wanting to stretch out her arms and embrace it. At last it slackened and she looked again at Tara.

 Tara was looking at Willow, and there was no smile on her lips now. The wordless sorrow was back in her face.

 "It's midnight," she said. "And I have to go." 

 Dawn knew instantly, at the sound of it, that "go" didn't just mean for the moment. "Go" meant forever. Tara was going somewhere that no trance or dream could reach. 

 And Willow knew it too.

 "Just a few more minutes," she said, reaching for Tara. 

 "I'm sorry-"

 "Tara, wait-I need to tell you-"

 "I can't!" For the first time the serenity of that bright face was destroyed, showing now only gentle sadness but tearing grief. "Willow, I can't wait. I'm so sorry." It was as if she were being pulled backward, retreating from them into some dimension that Dawn could not see. Maybe the same place the first went when her task was finished, Dawn thought. To be at peace.

 But Tara's eyes didn't look as if she were at peace. They clung to Willow, and she reached out her hand toward her, hopelessly. They didn't touch. Wherever Tara was being pulled was too far away.

 "Tara-please!" It was the voice Willow had called her with in the dinning room. As if her heart was breaking.

 "Willow," she cried, both hands held out to her now. But she was diminishing, vanishing. Dawn felt a sob swell in her own chest, close her own throat. It wasn't fair. All they had ever wanted was to be together. And now Tara's reward for helping the town and finishing her task was to be separated from Willow irrevocably. It just wasn't fair.

 "Willow," Tara called again, but her voice came as if from a long distance. The brightness was almost gone. Then, as Dawn stared through helpless tears, it winked out.

 Leaving the clearing silent once again. They were all gone, the ghost's of Sunnydale who had walked for one night to stop more blood from being spilled. The bright spirit that had led them had vanished without a trace, and even the moon and stars were covered by clouds.

 Dawn knew that the wetness on Willow's face wasn't due to the rain that was still splashing down. 

 She was standing, chest heaving, looking at the last place where Tara's brightness had been seen. And all the longing and the pain Dawn had glimpsed on her face at times before was nothing to what she saw now.

 "It isn't fair," she whispered. Then she shouted it to the sky, not caring who she was addressing. "It isn't fair!"

 Willow had been breathing more and more quickly. Now she lifted her face too, not in anger but in unbearable pain. Her eyes were searching the clouds as if she might find some last trace of golden light, some flicker of brightness there. She couldn't. Dawn saw the spasm go through her, like the agony of Jezebel's stake. And the cry that burst out of her was the most terrible thing she'd ever heard. 

 "Tara!"

AN: One more chapter to go people, I think I cried a trillion tears writing this


	12. Just Rewards

AN: Well this is it the last chapter are you ready for my surprise.

Dawn never could quite remember how the next few seconds went. She heard Willow's cry that almost seemed to shake the earth beneath her. She saw Buffy start toward her. And then she saw the flash.

  A flash like Jezebel's lightning, only not blue-white. This one was gold.

 And so bright Dawn felt that the sun had exploded in front of her eyes. All she could make out for several seconds were whirling colors. And then she saw something in the middle of the clearing, near the chimney stack. Something white, shaped like the ghosts, only more solid looking. Something small and huddled that had to be anything but what her eyes were telling her it looked like.

 Because it looked like a slender naked girl trembling on the forest floor. A girl with golden hair.

 It looked like Tara.

 Not the glowing, candle-lit Tara of the spirit world and not the fiercely lit Tara that was the Warren witch. This was a Tara whose creamy skin was blotching pink and showing gooseflesh under the spatter of the rain. A Tara who looked bewildered as she slowly raised her head and gazed around her, as if all the familiar things in the clearing wee unfamiliar to her.

 It's an illusion. Either that or they gave her a few minutes to say good-bye. Dawn kept telling herself that, but she couldn't make herself believe it.

 "Dawnie?" said a voice uncertainly. A voice that wasn't like wind chimes at all. The voice of a frightened young girl.

 Dawn's knees gave out. A wild feeling was growing inside her. She tried to push it away, not daring to even examine it yet. She just watched Tara.

 Tara touched the grass in front of her. Hesitantly at first, then more and more firmly, quicker and quicker. She picked up a leaf in fingers that seemed clumsy, put it down, and patted the ground. Snatched it up again. She grabbed a whole handful of wet leaves, held them to her, smelled them. She looked up at Dawn, the leaves scattering away.

 For a moment, they just knelt and stared at each other from the distance of a few feet. Then, tremulously, Dawn stretched out her hand. She couldn't breathe. The feeling was growing and growing.

 Tara's hand came up in turn. Reached toward Dawn's. Their fingers touched.

 Real fingers. In the real world. Where they both were.

 Dawn gave a kind of scream and threw herself on Tara.

 In a minute she was patting her everywhere in a frenzy, with wild, disbelieving delight. And Tara was solid. She was wet from the rain and she was shivering and Dawn's hands didn't go through her. Bits of damp leaf and crumbs of soil were clinging to Tara's hair.

 "You're here," she sobbed. "I can touch you, Tara!"

 "Tara gasped back, "I can touch you! I'm here!" She grabbed the leaves again. "I can touch the ground!"

 "I can see you touching it!" They might have kept this up indefinitely, but Buffy interrupted. She was standing a few steps away, staring, her green eyes enormous, her face white. She made a choking sound. 

 "Buffy!" Tara turned to her and held out handfuls of leaves. She opened her arms.

 Buffy, who had been able to cope when Tara became the spirit guardian of Rose, when Tara had materialized in the clearing like an angel, just stood there, shaking. She looked about to faint. 

 "Buffy, she's solid! You can touch her! See? Dawn pummeled Tara again joyfully.

 Buffy didn't move. She whispered, "It's impossible"

 "It's true! See? It's true!" Dawn was getting hysterical. She knew she was, and she didn't care. If anyone had a right to get hysterical, it was her. "It's true, it's true, she caroled. "Buffy, come see."

 Buffy, who had been staring at Tara all this while, made another choked sound. Then, with one motion, she flung herself down on Tara. She touched her, found that her hand met the resistance of flesh. She looked into Tara's face. And then she burst into uncontrollable tears.

 She cried and cried her head on Tara's naked shoulder.

 Dawn gleefully patted both of them.

 "Don't you think she'd better put something on?" said a voice, and Dawn looked up to see Faith calmly, standing in her jeans and t-shirt.

 Buffy and Dawn pulled the jacket around Tara. She looked small inside it, wet and somehow unnatural, as if she wasn't used to clothing anymore. But it was some protection from the elements, anyway.

 Then Tara whispered, "Willow."

 She turned. Willow was standing there, with Conner, Xander, and Spike, a little a part from the others. She was just watching her. As if not only her breath, but her life was held, waiting.

 Tara got up and took a tottery step to her, and then another and another. Slim and newly fragile inside her borrowed jacket, she wavered as she moved toward her. Like the little mermaid learning how to use her legs, Dawn thought.

 Willow let her get almost all the way there, just staring, before she stumbled toward her. They ended in a rush and then fell to the ground together, arms locked around each other, each holding on as tightly as possible. Neither of them said a word.

  At last Tara pulled back to look at Willow, and she cupped her face between her hands, just gazing back at her. Tara laughed aloud for sheer joy, opening and closing her own fingers looking at them in delight before burying them in Willow's hair. Then they kissed.

 Dawn watched unabashedly, feeling some of the heady joy spill over into tears. Her own throat ached, but these were sweet tears, not the salt tears of pain, and she was still smiling. She was filthy, she was soaking wet, she had never been so happy in her life. She felt as if she wanted to dance and sing and do all sorts of crazy things. 

 Some time later Tara looked up from Willow to all of them, her face almost as bright as when she'd floated in the clearing like an angel. Shinning like starlight. No one will ever call her shy again, Dawn thought.

 "My friends," Tara said. It was all she said, but it was enough, that and the queer little sob she gave as she held out a hand to them. They were around her in a second, swarming her, all trying to embrace at once. Even Victoria.

 Then she grasped a sturdy brown hand and held it briefly to her cheek. "Conner," she said and he smiled at her, brown eyes swimming. But not with misery at seeing her, Dawn thought. Just now Conner's face expressed only happiness. 

 A shadow fell over the little group, coming between them and the moonlight. Buffy looked up and held out her hand.

 "Faith," she said.

 The clear light and shining love in Buffy's face was irresistible. Or should have been irresistible, Dawn thought. But Faith stepped forward unsmiling, her black eyes as bottomless and unfathomable as ever. None of the starlight that shone from Tara reflected back from them.

 Buffy looked up at her fearlessly, as she'd looked into the painful brilliance of Tara's golden brightness. Then, never looking away, offered her hand. Dawn stepped forward and offered hers also. 

 Faith stood gazing down at her sisters, to two open fearless faces, the mute offer of their hands. The offer of connection, warmth, humanity. Nothing showed in her own face, and she was utterly motionless herself.

 "Come on, Faith." Conner said softly. Dawn looked at him quickly, and saw that the brown eyes were intent now as they looked at the shadowed balancers face.

 Faith spoke without moving. "I'm not like you."

 "You're not as different from us as you want to think," Xander said. "Look," he added, and odd note of challenge in his voice, "I know you protected or tried to protect Joyce and Buffy from Jezebel the first time she attacked, because I was there. You're more like us than you admit, Faith. The only thing I don't know is why you didn't stop Jezebel from taking your grandmother."

 Faith napped, almost automatically, "Because I was frozen!"

 Memory swept over Dawn. Herself standing next to Buffy, while she yelled at Faith, and Faith not moving.

 "But how did Jezebel get past the shields?" she began, following her own train of thought. 

 "They were down," Faith said tersely. "Jezebel was well prepared. That night she was in the house and Grandma was gone before I knew what had happened I was paralyzed."

 "Why didn't you call for Buffy?" Spike said. Their was no accusation in his voice. It was a simple question.

 "Because there was nothing she could have done! Buffy would have only gotten herself killed."

"You see I'm not like you," she said to her husband.

 "It doesn't matter," Buffy had still not withdrawn her hand. Neither had Dawn.

 Faith stared at sisters and then slowly joined hands with them stepping into the warmth. Victoria smiled and joined her hands in to. All that was missing was Joyce from this moment. 

 Tara and Willow wordlessly joined hands again, and Tara's golden head dropped to Willow shoulder. Over her head Willow watched the sister's reunion. 

 Dawn shook her head, feeling a catch in her throat. It was eased as something touched her arm and she looked up at Conner. Even soaking wet, even covered with bits of moss and fern, he was a beautiful sight. She smiled at him, feeling her wonder and joy a the night. The giddy, dizzy excitement as she thought about what had happened tonight. Buffy and Xander were smiling too, and in an impulsive burst Dawn seized Conner's hands and whirled him into a dance. In the middle of the clearing they kicked up wet leaves and spun and laughed. They were alive, and they were, young, and it was the summer solstice. And for a long time in the clearing there was only rejoicing.

**One year later.**

 The small blond child bent her head to blow out the single candle on her birthday cake and then clapped to the delight of everyone around. Buffy smiled and looked up smiling and glanced at Giles who was massaging a second trimester pregnant Jenny. Buffy knew they were happy, as she glanced at her mother and grandmother, sitting down laughing as Rose smashed the cake. Spike came through the kitchen door supporting a very pregnant Faith, who went over to compare bellies with an equally pregnant Dawn, Buffy laughed, then smiled when Conner kissed the back of Dawn's neck. She glanced at the kitchen door as Willow and Tara came through. Buffy smiled again as she thought of Tara's getting used to the world again. Xander smiled as he laid a hand on Buffy's still flat stomach. Buffy looked at her family and thought maybe it's time to pass the fight along to the new champions of the world. Tara Rose, the Champion, Dawn's daughters the future slayer and next Warren Witch, and finally Faith's child, the future balancer. They had survived that night in the forest, and that proved they could survive anything.

The End.

AN: Well that's it folks, this series is done. I had a great time writing it, and a lot of tear jerking moments in it. A special thanks goes out to Penguins Evil Pawn, You have stuck through me, through all four stories. You are truly a great fan. Look for other stories from me. 


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